DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i04.070

Pages: 1720-1723

Our finding of anterior EEG alpha power in patients may be unstable. Several reasons may contribute to this instability. First, there is preliminary evidence on an association of state affect and EEG alpha power asymmetry in depression. For this reason, we have not explored the relation of the subjects’ self-reported mood and anterior EEG asymmetry, but neither in healthy controls nor in depressed patients did we find a significant relation between positive affect, negative affect or a combined measure of mood and anterior EEG asymmetry for methodology. Thus, we did not find evidence that state mood is linked to variations in frontal EEG asymmetry, but, of course, we cannot exclude this possibility. To sum up, the findings reported in this study add to the growing body of evidence to show alterations of anterior brain activation in depression. Since anterior EEG asymmetry lacked temporal stability in depressed patients in this study, it appears too premature to consider anterior EEG alpha power asymmetry a trait marker for depression. Further research is needed to uncover the temporal characteristics of anterior EEG asymmetry to clinical features of depression. It is in this spirit that the present remarks are offered.