ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM CHANGES DUE TO CETIRIZINE

Dev Kumar Shah*, Rita Khadka, Ajit Kumar Sah, Rajesh Kumar Jha, Himal Sangraula, Bishnu Hari Paudel

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Cetirizine, second generation antihistamine, has appeared to reduce the incidence of sedation present with first generation antihistamine. The objective of the study was to find out the electroencephalogram changes after 15 mg single dose of cetirizine administration. Methods: A cross-over, placebo-controlled, double-blind study was carried on 30 healthy male volunteers (age 22- 33 years). The 5 min electroencephalographic recordings were done at baseline and with placebo and cetirizine. The electroencephalogram was decomposed into its constituent frequency bands: slow, alpha1, alpha2, alpha3, alpha4 and beta by Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) and three sets of data were compared by Friedman followed by multiple comparisons. Results: With cetirizine, power of EEG slow activity significantly increased at Cz[111 (88.1-149.4) vs.92.4 (79.7-130.4) μV2, p=0.021], Pz [88.6 (72.5-130.7) vs. 83.3 (65.1-101) μV2, p=0.008] and C3 [69.3 (57.5-91.7) vs. 58.7 (49.4-71.1) μV2, p= 0.004] sites whereas power of EEG beta activity significantly decreased at T5 [8 (6.1 - 11.3) vs. 9.4 (6.8 - 13.5) μV2, p= 0.020] and O1 [13.1 (9.0 - 19.1) vs.15.9 (10.3 - 22.0) μV2, p= 0.043] sites, and alpha2 activity at O2 [34 (10.0 -67.2) vs. 41.3 (16.8 - 84.6) μV2, p= 0.041] site. Conclusion: The study showed that single dose of 15 mg cetirizine causes changes in electrical activity of different areas of cerebral cortex which are reflected in electroencephalogram.

Keywords: alpha activity, beta activity, slow activity.