Electroencephalography (EEG)
Brain activity provides objective, translational evidence of whether a compound is crossing the blood-brain barrier, engaging your target, and producing the intended effects on neuronal networks and sleep architecture. Transpharmation’s wireless EEG platform combines translational EEG expertise, multi-species capabilities and advanced analysis to help you interpret these effects and make more informed development decisions.
EEG evidence designed around your development questions
Our electrophysiology platform supports CNS pharmacodynamic studies in rats, mice, and dogs. Wireless telemetry enables natural behaviors during extended recordings, and simultaneous measurement of other endpoints such as locomotor activity and core body temperature.
We can also integrate EEG with pharmacokinetic and biomarker studies, helping you investigate exposure-response relationships and place functional brain activity in a broader biological context.
Detail of offering
EEG provides a direct, objective measure of CNS activity that can complement behavioral, pharmacokinetic and biomarker data. This can be particularly useful for testing the following:
- Whether a compound reaches the brain
- Pharmacodynamics: functional onset, T-max and half-life
- Dose-dependency of effects
- Relationships between compound exposure and EEG response
- Evidence relevant to site of action or mechanism of action
For conditions like narcolepsy and insomnia, sleep is the primary endpoint. However, sleep is also disrupted across a range of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, and responds to clinically validated standard-of-care medications. Our sleep EEG studies assess sleep architecture over entire sleep-wake cycles to provide robust, repeatable results.
Our sophisticated detection algorithms are also able to positively identify sleep spindles, characteristic of the lighter stages of non-REM sleep, and which are notably disrupted in certain disease-states.
Finally, many drug effects are also highly dependent on the current sleep/wake state. This can be related to the endogenous tone in the system, or the presence of floor and ceiling effects. For this reason, we analyze qEEG in a sleep-state-dependent manner, to provide a complete picture of a compound’s action.
EEG can contribute exploratory information about undesirable CNS effects while also helping to distinguish these effects from intended pharmacological activity.
- Sedative or hypnotic effects
- Changes in sleep-wake behavior
- Abnormal electrophysiological events, e.g., spike-wave discharges
- Seizure liability
- Maladaptive increases in network excitability
Assays and endpoints
Quantitative EEG, or qEEG, is used to examine pharmacodynamic changes in spectral power frequency bands. Recordings may use surface or depth electrodes, depending on the study design and scientific question. We provide fully flexible definition of the bands of interest. The spectral profile of a drug’s response can provide important clues as to the mechanism of action of a compound.
In combination with muscle-tone, qEEG forms the backbone of our sleep analysis. Long-duration EEG recordings enable the assessment of treatment-related changes across light-cycles and momentary sleep and wake states. Our proprietary automated sleep-staging algorithms have been validated against expert manual scoring, and allow us to return fully analyzed results from an entire study within 7 days of completion of the recordings. Taken together sleep-EEG measures allow assessment of
- Brain penetrance
- CNS pharmacodynamics
- Concentration-effect relationships
- Potential pro-cognitive activity
- Hypotheses about dose, site of action or mechanism of action
Standard endpoints for sleep-EEG studies include:
- %time in Wakefulness, REM sleep and non-REM sleep across 24 hours
- Sleep latency
- Sleep fragmentation (bout-length)
- qEEG spectral profile, with analysis state-dependent analysis in user-defined bands
- SIGMA analysis of sleep spindles and spike-wave discharges (SWDs)
- WAVE analysis (amplitude, density, wavelength) for user-defined bands
- Locomotor activity
- Core body temperature
The auditory steady-state response, or ASSR, is a EEG response evoked by 40Hz tones which, in healthy people, synchronizes neuronal activity across wide areas of the neocortex. The 40 Hz ASSR reflects the integrity of cortical networks involved in auditory processing, and is actively used in both clinical and preclinical schizophrenia research.
- ASSR response amplitude (average and pharmacodynamic readouts)
- Reversal of induced deficits in ASSR
- Genetic model phenotyping
- Simultaneous estimation of qEEG effects
EEG recordings can support the detection and characterization of abnormal electrophysiological events, including spike-wave discharges and seizure activity.
- Seizure event incidence and duration including tonic or clonic seizures
- Spike-wave discharge analysis
- Differentiation between muscle twitches / convulsions and supra-spinal CNS events
- Spectral power changes
Data handling and study integration
Our support extends beyond EEG acquisition. Study designs can include advanced data handling and analysis, as well as integration with pharmacokinetic and biomarker measurements.
- The timing and magnitude of CNS effects
- Relationships between exposure and electrophysiological response
- Concordance between EEG, behavioral and biological endpoints
- Evidence supporting pharmacodynamic interpretation
- Findings relevant to progression, refinement or discontinuation decisions
Applicable Portfolio Services
Build an EEG study around the decision you need to make
Whether you need to characterize a disease-related signal, investigate target engagement, understand sleep effects or explore a potential CNS safety signal, our scientists can help you select EEG measures that address the question behind your next development decision.