EEG Power Spectra at Early Stages of Depressive Disorders

Abstract

In previous quantitative EEG studies of depression, mostly patients with a lifetime history of depressive disorders were reported. This study examined quantitative EEG parameters obtained in the early stages of depression in comparison with age-matched healthy controls. EEG was recorded using two different montages in eyes closed and eyes open resting states. A significant increase in spectrum power in theta (4-7.5 Hz), alpha (7.5-14 Hz), and beta (14-20 Hz) frequency bands was found in depressed patients at parietal and occipital sites, both in eyes closed and eyes open conditions. These results suggest that an increase in slow (theta and alpha) activity in the EEG pattern may reflect a decreased cortical activation in these brain regions. Enhancement of beta power may correlate with anxiety symptoms that most likely play an important role on the onset of depressive disorder.

Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback in Depression: Three case studies

“…Elevated power in alpha, theta, and beta bands in posterior cortical areas was observed in our studies (Grin-Yatsenko, Baas, Ponomarev, & Kropotov, 2009, 2010. Increased theta power has been found in depressed patients in several studies (for review see Olbrich & Arns, 2013).…”

Personalized Medicine: Review and Perspectives of Promising Baseline EEG Biomarkers in Major Depressive Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…In MDD a consistent finding is an elevated absolute [66,67,68,69,70] or relative alpha power [71,72] at mainly parietal and frontal [68,73] or occipital sites [74]. The reason that some studies did not find alpha power differences between patients and HCs [75,76] or found decreased (relative) alpha activity in comparison to other patient groups [77] might be related to differences of recording periods, where shorter recording periods prevent the differences described above [38,39] in vigilance regulation to occur (e.g.…”

Investigating the ability of post-stroke EEG measures of brain dysfuntion to inform early prediction of cognitive impairment or depression outcomes

“…Although not as comprehensively studied PSD has been associated with several resting state QEEG indices (Zhang et al, 2015). In non-stroke populations distinct EEG patterns have been found when depressed participants have been compared to healthy controls (Grin-Yatsenko et al, 2009).…”

“…These results were replicated to some degree in 111 non-stroke patients with early symptoms of depression (GrinYatsenko et al, 2009). When compared to EEG recordings of 523 healthy control participants, those with depressive symptoms had increases in alpha and theta power averaged over 19 electrodes, delta power was not assessed in this study (Grin-Yatsenko et al, 2009). A relationship between QEEG delta frequency power and depression has been shown in a non-stroke population of 104 participants (76 participants were classified as depressed based on DSM-IV criteria and 28 healthy controls) (Morgan et al, 2005).…”

“…There have been several investigations of the association between depression and alpha asymmetry in anterior and parietotemporal regions in non-stroke populations (Debener et al, 2000, Blackhart et al, 2006, Grin-Yatsenko et al, 2009, Stewart et al, 2011. It is assumed that depression is characterised by increased activity in the right hemisphere and decreased activity in the left leading to lower alpha power in the right and higher alpha power in the left (Olbrich and Arns, 2013).…”