Identification of Veterans With PTSD Based on EEG Features Collected During Sleep

Auditory Steady-State Evoked Potentials in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Introduction of a Potential Biomarker

Objective: The lack of steady-state evoked potential (SSEP) studies on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has led to undiscovered useful information about the pathophysiology of the disorder. Thus, we explored SSEP patterns in PTSD patients during a stop-signal task to disclose possible impairments in these informative brain potentials. Method : 25 adult patients with PTSD and 25 healthy adults participated in this research. Subjects were assessed with electroencephalography while the tone signal stimuli at 40 Hz were used to evoke SSEPs and subjects performed a stop-signal task. The amplitude and phase of SSEPs were then computed in different brain regions. The subjects were also evaluated using the Mississippi PTSD questionnaire. Appropriate statistical methods such as repeated measure ANOVA were used to compare the two groups, and the correlation between SSEPs and clinical symptoms was assessed using Pearson correlation analysis. Results: Patients showed considerably poorer performance in the cognitive task (P < 0.01), accompanied by raised SSEP phase and amplitude in the anterior and midline regions compared to healthy controls (P < 0.05). The Mississippi total score was positively correlated with the SSEP amplitude in the midline region (r = 0.62, P < 0.05). Furthermore, based on ROC analysis, the SSEP amplitude in the midline region provided an excellent AUC value (AUC = 0.850) for distinguishing patients with PTSD from normal subjects. Conclusion: Current findings suggest that abnormalities in the anterior and midline cortical neural networks are involved in the pathophysiology of PTSD. Importantly, midline abnormalities may provide a clinically-relevant measure for researchers wishing to assess the use of biomarkers for early diagnosis of PTSD as well as to evaluate new therapeutic and management approaches in the treatment of PTSD.

Harnessing physical activity monitoring and digital biomarkers of frailty from pendant based wearables to predict chemotherapy resilience in veterans with cancer

This study evaluated the use of pendant-based wearables for monitoring digital biomarkers of frailty in predicting chemotherapy resilience among 27 veteran cancer patients (average age: 64.6 ± 13.4 years), undergoing bi-weekly chemotherapy. Immediately following their first day of chemotherapy cycle, participants wore a water-resistant pendant sensor for 14 days. This device tracked frailty markers like cadence (slowness), daily steps (inactivity), postural transitions (weakness), and metrics such as longest walk duration and energy expenditure (exhaustion). Participants were divided into resilient and non-resilient groups based on adverse events within 6 months post-chemotherapy, including dose reduction, treatment discontinuation, unplanned hospitalization, or death. A Chemotherapy-Resilience-Index (CRI) ranging from 0 to 1, where higher values indicate poorer resilience, was developed using regression analysis. It combined physical activity data with baseline Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) assessments. The protocol showed a 97% feasibility rate, with sensor metrics effectively differentiating between groups as early as day 6 post-therapy. The CRI, calculated using data up to day 6 and baseline ECOG, significantly distinguished resilient (CRI = 0.2 ± 0.27) from non-resilient (CRI = 0.7 ± 0.26) groups (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.67). This confirms the potential of remote monitoring systems in tracking post-chemotherapy functional capacity changes and aiding early non-resilience detection, subject to validation in larger studies.