Prediction of SSRI Treatment in Major Depression.

Major depression is a mood disorder affecting 350 million people worldwide. The disorder is characterized by depressed mood, anhedonia, decreased quality of life, deficits in cognitive functions and even suicide thoughts. Treatment of depression is often a long process and includes taking different types and quantities of medications. Therefore, there is a need to predict the success of the SSRI treatment. Our research will examine the outcomes of the combined technologies: BNA (EEG), Eye-tracker, structural and functional MRI scans and neuropsychology tasks in patients with depression while receiving SSRI treatment. The purpose of the research is to track biomarkers and other measures, which will allow predicting the SSRI treatment's success within 4 weeks instead of 8 weeks. In addition, the investigators will attempt to categorize patients into different subgroups according to their brain activation and eye movements. This division into subgroups may contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms that account for the responsiveness to SSRI treatment and to the possibility of targeting patients with depression towards a particular treatment. From this research, the investigators aim to personalize the treatment of depression, make it more efficient and reduce the amount of time for the patient to reach an optimal responsiveness.