Assessment of electroencephalography modification by antipsychotic drugs in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders using frontier orbital theory: A preliminary study

AIM: Schizophrenia is characterized by an abnormality in electroencephalography (EEG), which can be affected by antipsychotic drugs. Recently, the mechanism underlying these EEG alterations in schizophrenia patients was reframed from the perspective of redox abnormalities. The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) can be calculated using a computational method and may be useful for evaluating the antioxidant/prooxidant effect of antipsychotic drugs. Thus, we examined the association between the effects of antipsychotic monotherapy on quantitative EEG and HOMO/LUMO energy. METHODS: We used medical report data including EEG results of psychiatric patients admitted to Hokkaido University Hospital. We extracted the EEG records of patients diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder undergoing antipsychotic monotherapy during the natural course of treatment (n = 37). We evaluated the HOMO/LUMO energy of all antipsychotic drugs using computational methods. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between the HOMO/LUMO energy of all antipsychotic drugs and spectral band power in all patients. Statistical significance was set at p < 6.25 × 10(−4) adjusted with Bonferroni correction. RESULTS: We showed that the HOMO energy of all antipsychotic drugs had weak positive correlations with delta‐ and gamma‐band power (e.g., standardized β = 0.617 for delta in the F3 channel, p = 6.6 × 10(−5); standardized β = 0.563 for gamma in the O1 channel, p = 5.0 × 10(−4)). CONCLUSION: Although there may be unexpected bias and confounding factors, our findings suggest that the effect of antipsychotic drugs on EEG may be related to their antioxidant actions.