Pre- and post-stimulus processes in affective task and event-related desynchronization (ERD): Do they discriminate anxiety coping styles?

Is cortical distribution of spectral power a stable individual characteristic?

“…Higher event-related alpha band desynchronization in anxious individuals has been already reported previously (Aftanas et al, 1996;Knyazev et al, 2006Knyazev et al, , 2008a. The between-group differences in reactivity of high and low antero-posterior gradient participants essentially replicate findings previously reported for comparison of high and low anxiety subjects.…”

Impulsivity, anxiety, and individual differences in evoked and induced brain oscillations

“…In regard to the second statement, enhanced alpha desynchronization in response to neutral (Knyazev et al, 2006) and negatively valenced (Aftanas et al, 1996) stimuli has been observed in high trait anxiety subjects. This is in keeping with well-known evidence of a greater effort investment (Brocke et al, 1996) and an increased receptivity or cortical excitability of the nervous system to afferent stimuli (Lacey and Lacey, 1974) in these subjects.…”

Trait anxiety impact on posterior activation asymmetries at rest and during evoked negative emotions: EEG investigation

“…Two studies were devoted to the perception of emotion in anxiety. Aftanas et al (1996a) found that during emotional gambling procedure, high anxiety individuals were marked with relatively larger left hemisphere activation over central and parietal regions. High anxiety subjects manifested right prefrontal theta hypoactivation favoring left hemispheric activity while viewing both threatening and pleasant pictures (Aftanas et al, 2003).…”

“…All these reports are inconsistent with Davidson's (2002) hypothesis that increased right frontal activity is a biological marker for anxiety. In turn, documented relative left hemispheric activation in anxiety (Carter et al, 1986;Heller et al, 1997;Aftanas et al, 1996aAftanas et al, , 2003 is likely to reflect cognitive dimension of anxiety termed as verbally mediated worry/anxious apprehension (Borkovec et al, 1983;Gruzelier, 1993;Heller and Nitschke, 1998). Findings on experience of emotion in high anxiety are heterogeneous, too.…”