Frontal EEG Activation Asymmetry Reflects Cognitive Biases in Anxiety: Evidence from an Emotional Face Stroop Task

Abstract

Electroencephalography (EEG) has been extensively used in studies of the frontal asymmetry of emotion and motivation. This study investigated the midfrontal EEG activation, heart rate and skin conductance during an emotional face analog of the Stroop task, in anxious and non-anxious participants. In this task, the participants were asked to identify the expression of calm, fearful and happy faces that had either a congruent or incongruent emotion name written across them. Anxious participants displayed a cognitive bias characterized by facilitated attentional engagement with fearful faces. Fearful face trials induced greater relative right frontal activation, whereas happy face trials induced greater relative left frontal activation. Moreover, anxiety specifically modulated the magnitude of the right frontal activation to fearful faces, which also correlated with the cognitive bias. Therefore, these results show that frontal EEG activation asymmetry reflects the bias toward facilitated processing of fearful faces in anxiety.

Frontal alpha asymmetry as a pathway to behavioural withdrawal in depression: Research findings and issues

“…Generally, most researchers have reported that EEG asymmetry in anxiety takes a similar form to that found in depression with greater relative left than right alpha power (Lα>Rα) in frontal sites [37,[92][93][94][95][96] and the reported FLA in anxiety has been described as relatively stable [97] and heritable [96].…”

Resting Parietal Electroencephalogram Asymmetries and Self-Reported Attentional Control

“…However, frontal EEG activity was not associated with AC. Since studies reporting associations between emotion regulation mechanisms and frontal EEG asymmetries 23,24 focused on the study of a reactive component of temperament, we speculate that frontal EEG asymmetry may be involved in regulatory processes, while parietal asymmetry seems to be involved in the disposition to regulate emotions. Low AC was associated with a diminished presence of a and b waves in the left parietal region (more a and b power in the right area).…”

“…In the same direction, Li et al 14 reported that AC may be associated with right lateralized activity at the temporoparietal and ventrofrontal cortex. Also, increased parietal right-lateralized b activity (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) Hz) at the baseline seems to be associated with greater flight responses to angry facial expressions. 15 All EEG studies, except the last one 15 focused on a rhythm (8-13 Hz) and its standard interpretation as a sign of idling (ie, the brain remains in standby).…”

A Pervasive Approach to EEG‐Based Depression Detection

“…Thus, as an objective physiological method to obtain data, EEG was proposed as a nonintrusive approach to study cognitive behavior [18][19][20] and other illness symptoms, such as insomnia [21][22][23], epilepsy [24][25][26], and sleep disorder [27]. EEG has also been used in the diagnosis of mental disorders, such as anxiety [28][29][30], psychosis [31][32][33][34], and depression [35][36][37][38]. In addition, depression as a mental disorder with clinical manifestations such as significant depression and slow thinking is always accompanied by abnormal brain activity and obvious emotional alternation.…”

“…The frequency of the EEG signal can be divided into 5 wave-bands: delta wave (<4 Hz), which normally appears in an adult's slow-wave sleep; theta wave (4-8 Hz), which is usually found when someone is sleepy; alpha wave (8-14 Hz), which is normally detected when someone is relaxed; beta wave (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30), which commonly appears when someone is actively thinking; and gamma wave , which could appear during meditation. The EEG signals undergo changes in the amplitude as well as frequency, while different mental tasks are performed [39][40][41][42].…”