Research About Alpha EEG Asymmetry and Self-consciousness in Depression

Depressive disorders shows an alpha EEG asymmetry with higher activation in the left anterior brain. This phenomenon might be associated with the strengthened negative activities in the right side of the brain, especially the information related to self-concept. However, it is absent of direct evidence to support the relationship between the alpha EEG asymmetry and self-concept, and it is not clear what the variation of the correlation between the two factors in depressive disorders. To investigate the issues, we collected the resting EEG data with eye-closed and the self-consciousness level data to compare the relationship between alpha EEG asymmetry and self-concept in depression patients and healthy controls. Results show that both the two groups have strong correlations between the self-consciousness and alpha asymmetry in the brain, but differed in the correlation patterns. Depressions show that self-consciousness is correlated with the more anterior alpha EEG asymmetry in the brain, while the healthy group correlate with the more posterior alpha asymmetry. These results indicate that the impairment of the correlation between self-concept and alpha asymmetry in depressive disorders might be a biomarker of the disease to be considered in future study.