Triggers and Characteristics of Brain Zaps According to the Findings of an Internet Questionnaire

To build on the findings of our prior study of spontaneous posts made about brain zaps on a popular lay mental health website using questions specifically targeting brain zaps in a web-based questionnaire.

3,141 responses were examined from an online questionnaire made available between June 2016 and February 2018. The questions probed the specifics of the medications taken, the temporal characteristics of medication taken, the symptoms associated with the brain zaps, the specifics of the "zap" experience itself, and their effect on quality of life. Special attention was paid to gathering data regarding the triggers of brain zaps, because in our previous study, eye movements triggering brain zaps emerged as an unexpected finding. As this was a convenience sample, qualitative analysis was primarily performed, except regarding the interaction between the half-life of antidepressants and the time to the onset of the first brain zaps, for which the numerical data appeared to be specific enough to allow such analyses.

The data from the targeted questionnaire showed a pattern of responses that was very similar to that obtained from analysis of the spontaneous posts. These data include the types of medications taken, the length of time these medications were taken before the onset of the zaps, the length of the zaps, the feeling quality of the zaps, and the effect of gradual versus sudden discontinuation on their onset and presence. Lateral eye movement as a trigger emerged with even more clarity than in the previous study. The positive correlation between the time from onset of the brain zaps and the half-life of the drugs strongly suggests that brain zaps are indeed associated with antidepressant discontinuation.

Brain zaps remain a barely examined and poorly understood symptom of antidepressant discontinuation. Further studies are needed from both a prevention and treatment perspective. There is now an even stronger indication that brain zaps are typically triggered by lateral eye movements, which may open avenues for investigating this process.