• D V Iosifescu, S Greenwald, P Devlin, R H Perlis, J W Denninger, J E Alpert, and M Fava.
• Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. diosifescu@partners.org
• Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2008 Apr 1; 117 (4): 271-6.

ObjectiveWe investigated frontal quantitative EEG (QEEG) as predictor of changes in suicidal ideation (SI) during SSRI treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD).MethodEighty-two subjects meeting DSM-IV criteria for MDD entered an 8-week, prospective, open-label treatment with flexible dose SSRIs and completed at least 4 weeks of treatment. We assessed MDD severity with the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D-17); change in SI was measured with HAM-D item no. 3. We recorded four-channel EEGs (F7-Fpz, F8-Fpz, A1-Fpz, A2-Fpz) before treatment.ResultsDuring the first 4 weeks of treatment 9 (11%) subjects experienced worsening SI. Left-right asymmetry of combined theta + alpha power correlated significantly with change in SI from baseline, even when adjusting for changes in depression severity (HAM-D-17) and for the SSRI utilized.ConclusionFrontal QEEG parameters before treatment may predict worsening SI during SSRI treatment in MDD.

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