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Suicidal thinking emerges or worsens in 3% to 15% of patients treated with certain antidepressant medications. Therefore, being able to identify patients likely to develop suicidal thinking before they begin treatment would be of considerable clinical importance. In a study funded by an EEG equipment manufacturer, researchers assessed 82 patients before treatment and after completing 4 weeks of open treatment with citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, or venlafaxine.
EEGs were performed at baseline with a simple four-channel fronto-temporo-parietal EEG system that measured theta (5–8 Hz) and alpha (8–12 Hz) band power. Data fed into a laptop yielded several quantitative-EEG computations of hemispheric differences. As …