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A Novel Strategy To Identify Placebo Responders: Prediction Index Of Clinical And Biological Markers In The Embarc Trial

Trivedi, Madhukar H.; South, Charles; Jha, Manish K.; Rush, A John; Cao, Jing; Kurian, Benji; Phillips, Mary; Pizzagalli, Diego A.; Trombello, Joseph M.; Oquendo, Maria A.; Cooper, Crystal; Dillon, Daniel G.; Webb, Christian; Grannemann, Bruce D.; Bruder, Gerard; McGrath, Patrick J.; Parsey, Ramin; Weissman, Myrna M.; Fava, Maurizio

Background: One-in-three clinical trial patients with Major Depressive Disorder report symptomatic improvement with placebo. Strategies to mitigate the effect of placebo response have focused on modifying study design with variable success. Identifying and excluding or controlling for individuals with high likelihood of responding to placebo may improve clinical trial efficiency and avoid unnecessary medication trials. Methods: Participants included those assigned to the placebo arm (n=141) of the Establishing Moderators and Biosignatures for Antidepressant Response in Clinical Care (EMBARC) trial. The elastic net was used to evaluate 283 baseline clinical, behavioral, imaging, and electrophysiological variables to identify the most robust yet parsimonious features that predicted depression severity at the end of the double-blind 8-week trial. Variables retained in at least 50% of the 100 imputed datasets were used ina Bayesian multiple linear regression model to simultaneously predict the probabilities of response and remission. Results: Lower baseline depression severity, younger age, absence of melancholic features or history of physical abuse, less anxious arousal, less anhedonia, less neuroticism, and higher average theta current density in the rostral anterior cingulate predicted higher likelihood of improvement with placebo. The Bayesian model predicted remission and response with a actionable degree of accuracy (both AUC> 0.73). An interactive calculator was developed predicting likelihood of placebo response at the individual level. Conclusion: Easy-to-measure clinical, behavioral and electrophysiological assessments can be used to identify placebo responders with a high degree of accuracy. Development of this calculator based on these findings can be used to identify potential placebo responders.

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Also Published In

Title
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1159/000491093

More About This Work

Academic Units
Epidemiology
Psychiatry
Published Here
February 1, 2022