Brain Waves Display Suicide Ideation

As more people take antidepressant drugs, the known risk of suicide increases. The trick is to determine who among many is at the greatest risk, and researchers at UCLA believe that quantitative electroencephalography could have an answer.  Typically, EEG studies rely on a sensored cap that measures the brain’s electrical activity.  But the UCLA group has developed an algorithm that converts the electrodes’ output to a brain map where the researchers have seen increases in suicidal thoughts 48 hours after the subjects began taking antidepressants.  Among further developments in this area is the prospect of using fewer electrodes, which might give an indication is as little as ten minutes.           MORE

Image Credit: UCLA Laboratory of Brain Behavior and Pharmacology and Technology Review