Depression is an all-too-common psychiatric condition that can profoundly affect a person’s well-being. While there is a huge range of medications available to treat depression, many people don’t respond to the first or even second medications they are prescribed. As a result, doctors must often take a trial-and-error approach, meaning it could take months or even years to find an effective medication.

In the search for better approach, some researchers are exploring the use of machine learning to predict which patients will respond to a specific antidepressant medication. In a study published 12 September in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, one team describes a machine-learning algorithm that analyzes the electrical activity of people’s brains and could predict response to the antidepressant Sertraline with 83.7 percent accuracy.

It would be nice if they found SOME way to try to determine effectiveness of a med for a person before having to blindly scribe it. I was on sertraline for really no reason, but my doc was way too quick in writing a script for it. About a year later I decided there was no reason for me to be taking the med and decided to stop taking it. I'm one of the lucky ones who has a very difficult time getting off the drug. Took me three years to be able to stop taking it and then had withdrawal affects for another year. I could not imagine having to go through that after finding out that the medication didn't work for you at all.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sariel007:

Depression is an all-too-common psychiatric condition that can profoundly affect a person’s well-being. While there is a huge range of medications available to treat depression, many people don’t respond to the first or even second medications they are prescribed. As a result, doctors must often take a trial-and-error approach, meaning it could take months or even years to find an effective medication.

In the search for better approach, some researchers are exploring the use of machine learning to predict which patients will respond to a specific antidepressant medication. In a study published 12 September in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, one team describes a machine-learning algorithm that analyzes the electrical activity of people’s brains and could predict response to the antidepressant Sertraline with 83.7 percent accuracy.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/y3u04g/ai_can_offer_insight_into_who_responds_to/isac9yx/

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They do have that process for metabolization of the med but not how effective it will be. Genesight is the main company that does it

I don’t understand this article. How effective is this particular medication in the general population? We are missing key information.

> along with predicting response to Sertraline with 83.7 percent accuracy could similarly detect response to the placebo with 83 percent accuracy

This is amazing. Can confirm, felt like my doctor just threw things at the wall to see what sticks. Tried over a dozen meds.

Chiming in to say the same. https://genesight.com/product/

I was tested through this method a month ago and my meds were changed to align with the results.

I have not felt this good in years.

Yep had no effect on me. But came with withdrawals. So crappy.

I was prescribed sertraline after one appointment, even after I specifically mentioned my depression symptoms were potentially caused by my undiagnosed ADHD at the time. They refused to entertain the idea of me having ADHD and just threw sertraline at me. Thankfully I refused them and went private for an actual ADHD diagnosis. I'm medicated now and I've not been unhappy since.

Edit - This is in the UK

I’ve tried one of the DNA testing things and it did not match my experience of finding certain medications not effective.

Not even the stamina boost in bed?? I took it for months just for that, but didn't like the "distant emotions" feeling it gave me.

Thank you for the award!

I could’ve used this a long ass time ago. Find myself thinking that a lot nowadays. 😂

Life is so hard... Here's a robot to prescribe pills.

I hope it’s not going to stop only with antidepressants. I was Montelukast for many years that was cause of my depression and hell lot of nightmares, while the medicine was generally prescribed for cold and asthma. I stopped it and I started feeling better and my nightmares went to 0.

Thanks for this. Going to give it a shot after not having a few different meds do right by me.

What was your out of pocket cost for the test?

Very happy for you that you have it all worked out! I just wish the doc would have talked to me about possible issues with the med. I learned to ASK questions and research meds on my own before getting a script filled and starting to take it.

Not sure sertraline helped me at all with the mini anxiety attacks but I hear you on the withdrawal!

That’s because they don’t have the capability of telling whether or not a medication will be effective. Results can include information regarding the drug’s metabolism and whether perhaps higher or lower doses may be required, if smoking affects the drug level, if maybe there would be a chance of increased adverse effects, and the like.

Yes, and I’m saying that was inaccurate.

I am also prescribed for 200mg Sertralin every morning and I'm really feeling great. I went to the psychiatrist to see if I had ADHD, instead I was prescribed for Anxiety and depression. Is the withdrawal really that bad? Or should I be concerned? Also I don't mind taking it for the rest of my life if it makes me feel good?

Sertraline didn't do shit for me.

Microdosing psilocybin though did wonders.

But antidepressants are usually effective for depression? Sertraline is commonly used. Seems like a BS study

Have you ever missed a dose? Those brain shocks are very unpleasant and takes awhile to go away. Withdrawal is obviously different in severity for every individual but if you've ever missed a dose or two you have a good idea of how it will feel

For some people about a third if I recall correctly, it's extremely difficult to stop taking the med. You have to reduce the amount you take over time. Some people can do that over the course of a couple months. I wasn't so lucky. In addition, I gave up at one point and just started taking it because my mood in addition to other issues were really that bad.

Some people also build up a tolerance to the med and have to increase the dosage. I don't know if this med has a max dosage, but if it does, when you hit that point and it stops working as well as it used to, you'll need to stop taking the med, most likely before starting a new one.

I am not trying to scare anyone or tell anyone not to take this drug. I'm just sharing things that I wish I knew so I could have made an informed decision before taking it.

Yes! I forgot all about those. My wife and I were on sertraline together and both ran out at the same time, a week before vacation! I thought we were going to kill each other, no joke. Luckily the script came in the mail a few days after we ran out and we were back to just wanting to kill each other in time for vacation. :)

What were the withdrawals like? I had been on it for 15 years or so and every time I went off, I’d get these horrible brain zaps if I didn’t perfectly taper off. Finally quit for good six months ago and it left me feeling Kind of weird.

Oh, this sounds like eye-rolling. Can I do that with you? Can we do that at each other??? Let's cringe the world until it's dust baby!

I found it worked well till it didn’t, I was immune to it in under a year. I’ve been through 4 different antidepressants, they all ended up being useless after 10 to 12 months. The withdrawal can be brutal. It’s all an experiment really. Everyone is different, good luck.

Yeah fuck that drug and doctors who prescribe it immediately. It is good for lasting longer in bed though.

I SOOOO forgot about the brain zaps until first reminded about them by another poster. The brain zaps for sure, but I also had a personality change. Very irritable. You could say good morning and I'd snap at you. Not sure I ever recovered from that 100%. I also had dizziness, and an overall just unwell feeling. Several months after weaning myself "off" I had mild symptoms of the same and kept wondering what was going on and thought of going to the doc until I realized it was the sertraline. Took about a full year for those side affects to finally go away.

How much did it cost?

I had the opposite experience. It was VERY effective at helping with my depression, but oh God, the side effects were awful.

Tapering off it was as easy as starting it for me.

There are lots of different antidepressants. Read the comments on this thread. Sertraline doesn't work for everyone, and that's the point of the study, to better forecast which meds will work for which patients.

Does not have to be. I had 200 mg for years, and the same as you, I wouldnt have minded taking it for the rest of my life.

But at some point I felt the only contact point to my problems was taking the pills, so I tried to stop, and there were 0 problems.

Lets hear that again after you scream your lungs out from terror around 30 times a day.

Psilocybin is not only more effective than currently available antidepressants, it is much faster than current meds.

I've always heard of "brain zaps," and I wonder if that's what i was experiencing when I came off of Zoloft.

It wasn't in my brain though, so I didn't connect it right away. I was having weird jolts/tingles traveling down my arms. Was happening for months, then I started on a different anti depressant, and those zaps immediately went away

Pick up a milligram scale and take a piece of sandpaper. Every day, shave 1 milligram of your pill down. So if it weighs 200mg, do 199mg, 198mg, etc. etc. You can do 2mg drops to if you want. Go as low as you can. If you have symptoms, ask your doctor to go on Prozac and titrate off with that. It has a longer half life.

Also, sanction this with a doctor first and with regular updates with your psychiatrist and therapist...

I would suggest that they were. I also remember to some minor degree jolts running through various parts of my body.

augh! what were your side effects? Glad you didn't have problems getting off the med. Most people don't but enough people do that there should be mandatory precautionary discussion with doc before a script is written.

I hated getting off of sertraline but thankfully my symptoms were confined to only a couple weeks. Dealing with that for a year sounds awful.

As someone who was on multiple anti-depressants at various strengths, I wish I had this to help me before my brain got fried on this shit.

It was what it was. What's amazing is that most people can just stop taking the med cold turkey without any problems.

Good question. I’d also like to know.

Hopefully it helps someone avoid our problems.

Wish I had a way to know that sertraline was going to cause severe side effects for me before I tried it…very first experience with an anti-depressant and it almost made me not want to try something different!

>Indeed, the study results show that the machine-learning algorithms—along with predicting response to Sertraline with 83.7 percent accuracy—could similarly detect response to the placebo with 83 percent accuracy.

>where we were able to identify the presence of suicidal ideation with accuracy of 70 percent

These EEG scans are just revolutionary. It's kind of crazy that we still in 2022 determine someone's degree of depression with pen & pad. I'm absolutely hyped to see this progresses though!!

Your insurance could cover it. Call them. Ask your psych/prescriber if you qualify for the in office test.

Call your insurance. It has to be ordered by a psych/doctor and done in office with them.

No sir, Psilocybin has no recognized medical uses don’t you know?

I think there are meds that help with that but don't cause the emotional issues to that degree (mostly because they have such a short half life that they leave your body and you just take it before you have sex). It's relatively recent but I don't know if insurance would cover.

Sorry you had severe side effects :/. May I ask what you tried after sertraline?

I have not received the bill yet however I believe she said it was under $200? I will use my HSA account to pay for it.

Honestly, I'd pay more considering how much better I am feeling. It's been a rough past three years clawing myself out of the cesspool of depression. This is the best I have felt in 5+ years.

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Issue isn't who responds to antidepressants when you are ON them. The issue for most becomes how you and your body responds when you are OFF then. Plenty of suicides on people who regularly take them and are fine, up until they miss a dose or few for one reason or another.

I probably spent more time researching and learning about neuroscience and endocrinology than I did on my entire degree in computer science. It’s the reason why I knew an SSRI wasn’t right for me because I understood my issue was fundamentally within my dopaminergic system which amphetamines took care of perfectly. It’s nice to finally function and thrive after living a life of the complete opposite.

This is potentially poor advice, sertraline tends to be film coated tablets, if you tinker with the coating you might affect the absorption rate causing effects you might not anticipate.

I started with sertraline (horrible side effects I can’t even list them all), then escitalopram (felt empty/emotionless), then tried prozac (helped with depression but made anxiety worse).

I ended up having another medical issue come up later in life (seizures) which can be helped with lamictal. Coincidentally that is a mood stabilizer and I discovered it is my perfect medication! Normally it’s given to people with bi-polar disorder. It really helped both depression and anxiety symptoms for me, even though I’m not bipolar myself.

Everyone is different and has to go on their own medication journey, I’m lucky that after having that horrible experience with sertraline that I didn’t give up. It only took me 4 tries, but that’s 3 tries too many IMO.

I take sertraline for anxiety (75 mgs/day) and I feel like a different person - in a good way. It is the only medication I've tried and I know I got lucky.

I had a few side effects initially, but the only one that's lasted is sleepiness. Some days I feel like I could sleep forever. But because my anxiety is so under control, it's a small price to pay.

Caused problems in the bedroom. It turns out there IS such a thing as lasting too long :\

Does AI predict the 60 lb weight gain on sertraline?

I have. I didn't feel anything too severe. But I must tell you that 200mg is my stepped up dose. I started with 50mg a day for the first month (that's also when I missed a dose because I rescheduled my appointment a day later, so I went on 31st day instead of 30th). Along with Sertralin I am also taking Zolpidem 5mg and Amitriptyline 25mg.

Thank you. I hope you are doing well. Also I don't mind if they stop working after a year because I need help now as I have a very crucial exam of my life in February and the only thing holding me back is my out of control mind. When I take my pills, the reaction my roommate gives me, really makes me feel bad, as if I'm at a mental asylum taking my meds.

The problem is doctors thinking you’re just trying to get high. Don’t even dare mention that you smoke weed as a way to self-medicate your symptoms away, because then you’ll NEVER get the help you need.

That sounds very reassuring. Thanks. As mentioned above I did miss a dose but didn't feel anything. Maybe because my brain is not yet used to it?

Man I feel so bad for you, the second you get the dex into you it's life-changing. I remember thinking, "is this how everyone else feels normally?" In relation to mental clarity. Wish it happened earlier for me too, I was about 20 when diagnosed so school was a joke.

As someone who has tried at least 7 different medications, always with either zero effect or massive side effects, I always wanted to try genetic testing. I knew it existed but didn't know where to get it done. That's awesome it helped you. I might have to look into it.

It’s none of your roommates business what you put in your body. Don’t let small minded people hold you back. I get it that you need that bit of help regarding your exams. Do whatever it takes to get your best results.

They do. I took a test called Genesight. It breaks up the medications into three groups based how how well your body metabolizes them. Once I got that test, both meds I started were absolutely perfect. It's like I have a new life.

This is interesting. I was on sertraline for awhile- it stopped most of my depressive episodes but resulted in me feeling 100% apathetic and numb all the time. Took me way too long to get off it because I was so apathetic about getting off it lmao

I have 83% accuracy with that too. Just say “No” for everyone.

Long term efficacy of antidepressants is shit. What does it matter if AI can predict who responds short term?

I was given Sertraline and after five months of good progress my dose was upped, and a month later I had a euphoric lapse. For two months my mind broke and the walls between reality and fantasy all but vanished.

I voluntarily committed myself, and after a month of evaluation and care I was informed I had gotten a bipolar diagnosis. Today, two years later, I'm still not myself again.

So yeah, I would have liked the test OP talks about.

I can predict depressive response to oppressing late stage capitalism with 100 percent accuracy.

where can one get psilocybin

Started looking around now! Thanks again

Yeah, I had the same reaction as you. I did feel kinda depressed for a little while because I was just thinking about how much I could've accomplished had I been diagnosed much earlier but I stopped doing that because ultimately; the past is the past.

You mentioned "dex". I'm assuming you're taking Vyvanse/Elvanse?

Curious what side effects you experienced when trying to get off the drug? I experience sever brain flashes whenever I forget to take it after a few days. Anything else you had to deal with?

Nah I take dexamphetamine 5mg. Vyvance and elvance is lisdexamphetamine, the prodrug of dex. I hate long acting stimulants so I prefer straight dex.

I took it too, albeit many years too late in my opinion. Results made so much sense, learned I had a moderate or sever gene interaction with all but 6 of the 20 some odd antidepressants listed in their panel. These pharmacogenomic tests shouldn’t be such a damn secret, would save years of trial and error for so many people.

Yeah, I had mine done at age 33.

I try hard not to become too caught up in my regret and sadness over not having the test available to me sooner. Almost no professional medical doctors know about it now, so it's not like I could have gotten it done in time to save all the years of agony over having severe MTHFR and not being medicated properly when i was younger. I would have had a much easier time in school, and in life in general.

But, I can't tell you how relieved I am to know that I'm not just lazy or useless, and that there was a legitimate medical reason for why doing things that seemed so easy for everyone else was so difficult for me.

I'm just very thankful that I've got another 30 or so years ahead of me where I get to have a better, more normal life experience. It makes me sad for those in the past that didn't have an explanation or a cure as to why they struggled so hard.

Why does reddit love to shit on antidepressants but act like psilocybin is some sort of miracle cure? There's far more proper research on the effectiveness on SSRIs. A study with no blinds, controls, and literally 24 people isn't exactly foolproof.

Don't get me wrong, you could easily be right, and I wouldn't be surprised based on personal experience lol. But to make claims like that like you're certain, when the research simply isn't so conclusive yet, is pretty dangerous.

I am just curious what you switched to. Im on Mirtazapine and Wellbutrin and they dont do much. Been on Zoloft before and felt like an emotionless robot, and I think a few others in between, but never really found anything that works.

That's great to know but I wonder why it isn't more commonly performed. Wonder if it's $$$?

Definitely the brain jolts which I TOTALLY forgot until another redditor posted about them. Also very very irritable. Dizziness if I recall correctly and overall not feeling well at all. When I was finally able to "stop" taking the med, I had a few episodes of not feeling well sort of hard to explain the exact feeling and wondered what was causing them and then I recalled the ssri I was taking and I instantly accounted those symptoms from that drug. Those lasted for about a year after completely being off the med.

It's expensive, but I don't think that's the reason why. Almost no general practitioners know about the test, or what MTFHR is. I think it's just still too unknown.