To date, no robust electroencephalography (EEG) markers of antidepressant treatment response have been identified. Variable findings may arise from the use of group analyses, which neglect individual variation. Using a combination of group and single-participant analyses, we explored individual variability in EEG characteristics of treatment response.
Resting-state EEG data and Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) symptom scores were collected from 43 patients with depression before, at 1 and 12 weeks of pharmacotherapy. Partial least squares (PLS) was used to: 1) identify group differences in EEG connectivity (weighted phase lag index) and complexity (multiscale entropy) between eventual medication responders and non-responders, and 2) determine whether group patterns could be identified in individual patients.
Responders showed decreased alpha and increased beta connectivity, and early, widespread decreases in complexity over treatment. Non-responders showed an opposite connectivity pattern, and later, spatially confined decreases in complexity. Thus, as in previous studies, our group analyses identified significant differences between groups of patients with different treatment outcomes. These group-level EEG characteristics were only identified in ~40-60% of individual patients, as assessed quantitatively by correlating the spatiotemporal brain patterns between groups and individual results, and by independent raters through visualization.
Our single-participant analyses suggest that substantial individual variation exists, and needs to be considered when investigating characteristics of antidepressant treatment response for potential clinical applicability.