EEG Signal Processing as a Predictor of Anti-Depressant Response

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious mental condition that often completely debilitates a

client. MDD is typically treated with one of several currently available antidepressant medications.

However, the response rate to any of these medications is only about 30%. Unfortunately, there are

currently no means for a priori assessment of whether a specific person will respond to a particular

medication. Thus, in prescribing a treatment for MDD, the psychiatrist must by necessity resort to a

trial-and-error procedure. This can result in long delays before remission and significant stress on the

health care system.

In conjunction with collaborating psychiatrists, the applicant has developed a preliminary EEG-based

machine learning (ML) methodology that can predict the response of a person to an SSRI medication

(which is one of the classes of anti-depressant treatment) before the therapy begins. It is clear that

such a capability, when fully developed, will vastly improve the treatment of MDD. However, before

this system can be exploited …

Faculty Supervisor:

James Reilly

Student:

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology

University:

McMaster University

Program:

Accelerate

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