At October 26-30, researchers from Research Institute Brainclinics have presented the latest results of ongoing research at the International Conference of “the International Pharmaco-EEG Society (IPEG)“, which took place in Nijmegen, The Netherlands this time.

During this successful, well attended (160 visitors from 24 different countries), meeting the following topics were presented by Brainclinics:

• Dr. Martijn Arns presented the current status of personalized medicine and new results from the latest treatment prediction studies for depression and ADHD.
• Drs. Berrie Gerrits showed promising results demonstrating that people who have good attention activated a specific brain network in a different way than people with poor attention. Interestingly, adults with ADHD showed the same pattern as healthy people with poor attention.
• Dr. Madelon Vollebregt demonstrated the importance of doing research into alpha brain waves in relation to ADHD. These waves were not clearly seen in the back of the head in boys with ADHD in contrast to in healthy boys. In addition, these brain waves were slower in the front of the head in adults with ADHD who did not respond to the drug methylphenidate (better known by the brand name Ritalin or Concerta) than those who did respond.
• Also, Madelon presented a study in which a relationship was demonstrated between the change of sunlight in the period after birth, and the number of attentional errors made in adulthood by people with specific risk gene also associated with ADHD (DRD4 7R genotype).
• Drs. Tabitha Iseger presented results of the iSPOT-D-study in which it was found that direct stimulation of a brain network comprising the brain regions’ dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPC), and ‘subgenuale anterior cingulate’ (sgACC) leads to a reduced connectivity in alpha brain waves, specifically in men who responded well to the treatment. She also presented an introduction to Neuro-Cardiac-Guided rTMS (NCG rTMS); a method which seeks to stimulate using rTMS the above-mentioned network (as a substitute for the currently used “motor threshold’ for the DLPFC) via the relationship between this network and changes in heart rate.
• Drs. Lana Donse presented the clinically very relevant result that sleep problems that occur in an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), can predict the extent to which rTMS treatment will work in OCD patients.
• Finally, Drs. Nikita van der Vinne presented preliminary results of a meta-analysis -an analysis in which all studies on that topic so far are merged to one study- on alpha asymmetry as characteristic for depression. The trials that were included so far, although the phenomenon has often been adopted as fact, did not show evidence for a diagnostic value of alpha asymmetry for depression. Note that this finding is independent of the predictive value that can deliver alpha asymmetry for treatment.
• Dr. Sebastian Olbrich, a colleague from Zürich with whom Brainclinics closely cooperates, presented treatment prediction studies for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and explained the use of an EEG analysis program (LORETA).

Martijn, Madelon, and Sebastian were in the organizing committee of this conference. Madelon (secretary) and Sebastian (president) are part of the board of the organization and Martijn (former Treasurer) has handed down his duties after many years of involvement. The next meeting of the IPEG will take place in 2018 in Zürich.

All abstracts of IPEG presentations can be found online.