• Carina Graversen, Søren S Olesen, Anne E Olesen, Kristoffer Steimle, Dario Farina, Oliver H G Wilder-Smith, Stefan A W Bouwense, Harry van Goor, and Asbjørn M Drewes.
• Mech-Sense, Department of Gastroenterology, Aalborg Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark.
• Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2012 Mar 1;73(3):363-72.

AimTo identify electroencephalographic (EEG) biomarkers for the analgesic effect of pregabalin in patients with chronic visceral pain.MethodsThis was a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 31 patients suffering from visceral pain due to chronic pancreatitis. Patients received increasing doses of pregabalin (75mg-300mg twice a day) or matching placebo during 3 weeks of treatment. Pain scores were documented in a diary based on a visual analogue scale. In addition, brief pain inventory-short form (BPI) and quality of life questionnaires were collected prior to and after the study period. Multi-channel resting EEG was recorded before treatment onset and at the end of the study. Changes in EEG spectral indices were extracted, and individual changes were classified by a support vector machine (SVM) to discriminate the pregabalin and placebo responses. Changes in individual spectral indices and pain scores were correlated.ResultsPregabalin increased normalized intensity in low spectral indices, most prominent in the theta band (3.5-7.5Hz), difference of -3.18, 95% CI -3.57, -2.80; P= 0.03. No changes in spectral indices were seen for placebo. The maximum difference between pregabalin and placebo treated patients was seen in the parietal region, with a classification accuracy of 85.7% (P= 0.009). Individual changes in EEG indices were correlated with changes in pain diary (P= 0.04) and BPI pain composite scores (P= 0.02).ConclusionsChanges in spectral indices caused by slowing of brain oscillations were identified as a biomarker for the central analgesic effect of pregabalin. The developed methodology may provide perspectives to assess individual responses to treatment in personalized medicine.© 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology © 2011 The British Pharmacological Society.

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