Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci.  2011 Aug;9(2):78-85.

Effects of Psychotropic Drugs on Quantitative EEG among Patients with Schizophrenia-spectrum Disorders

• Hyun J
• Baik MJ
• Kang UG

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
We examined how psychotropic medications affected quantitative EEG (qEEG) results among patients with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.
METHODS
The drugs were clustered into nine groups depending on their mechanism. We hypothesized that drugs would affect the relative power shown in qEEG results independently and investigated the effect of each drug group on relative power using multiple linear regression analysis and independent samples t-tests.
RESULTS
We found that antipsychotics other than clozapine induced an increase in the relative power of alpha activity. Clozapine markedly increased slow waves and decreased alpha activity in the occipital area. The main findings for antidepressants and antiepileptic drugs were the beta increment and lithium increased the power of delta and theta activity. However, we found no evident changes in power due to benzodiazepine.
CONCLUSION
Our results are generally consistent with previous pharmaco-EEG studies, despite some differences. Therefore, the EEG effect in each drug group could be singled out even under the polypharmacy condition, with the possible exception of benzodiazepines. Our results support using a new methodological approach to identify the qEEG effects of various psychotropic drugs in clinical settings.

Keyword

Pharmaco-EEG; Polypharmacy; Psychotropic drugs; Quantitative EEG; Relative power; Schizophrenia-spectrum disorder

MeSH Terms

Anticonvulsants
Antidepressive Agents
Antipsychotic Agents
Benzodiazepines
Clozapine
Electroencephalography
Humans
Linear Models
Lithium
Polypharmacy
Psychotropic Drugs
Anticonvulsants
Antidepressive Agents
Antipsychotic Agents
Benzodiazepines
Clozapine
Lithium
Psychotropic Drugs