Understanding psychopharmacology is important to neurofeedback because drugs can affect a client’s clinical presentation, EEG, assessment, and training success. Reviewing a list of the medications and social drugs, your client is currently taking is essential. In some cases, different members of a drug class can produce different effects. Individual responses to medications can vary widely and may depend on factors like dosage, individual physiology, and the presence of other medical conditions.
A single dose of a prescription psychotropic drug can markedly change the EEG within 1-3 hours of administration. Families of psychotropic drugs that share therapeutic equivalence (e.g., chlorpromazine-like neuroleptics and haloperidol-like neuroleptics) produce similar systematic EEG changes (Knott, 2000). A drug’s plasma level, which depends on the dose, distribution volume, and metabolism, influences the magnitude of EEG alterations, which should be symmetrical and often widespread.
Common EEG changes include slowing background activity, increased beta activity, epileptiform activity, triphasic waves, and widespread delta and increased theta activity (Blume, 2006).
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