Regional differences in trait-like characteristics of the waking EEG in early adolescence

BMC Neuroscience

Sarah P Loughran¹  Peter Achermann³  Leila Tarokh²  Dominik C Benz⁴ 

[1] School of Psychology, Illawarra Health & Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia;Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, USA;Neuroscience Center, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

关键词: Alpha activity;    Clustering;    Endophentoype;    Development;    Spectral analysis;   

Others  :  1140002
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-14-117

 received in 2013-06-20, accepted in 2013-10-03,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

The human waking EEG spectrum shows high heritability and stability and, despite maturational cortical changes, high test-retest reliability in children and teens. These phenomena have also been shown to be region specific. We examined the stability of the morphology of the wake EEG spectrum in children aged 11 to 13 years recorded over weekly intervals and assessed whether the waking EEG spectrum in children may also be trait-like. Three minutes of eyes open and three minutes of eyes closed waking EEG was recorded in 22 healthy children once a week for three consecutive weeks. Eyes open and closed EEG power density spectra were calculated for two central (C3LM and C4LM) and two occipital (O1LM and O2LM) derivations. A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to determine whether the morphology of the waking EEG spectrum between 1 and 20 Hz is trait-like. We also examined the stability of the alpha peak using an ANOVA.

Results

The morphology of the EEG spectrum recorded from central derivations was highly stable and unique to an individual (correctly classified in 85% of participants), while the EEG recorded from occipital derivations, while stable, was much less unique across individuals (correctly classified in 42% of participants). Furthermore, our analysis revealed an increase in alpha peak height concurrent with a decline in the frequency of the alpha peak across weeks for occipital derivations. No changes in either measure were observed in the central derivations.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that across weekly recordings, power spectra at central derivations exhibit more “trait-like” characteristics than occipital derivations. These results may be relevant for future studies searching for links between phenotypes, such as psychiatric diagnoses, and the underlying genes (i.e., endophenotypes) by suggesting that such studies should make use of more anterior rather than posterior EEG derivations.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Benz et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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