Abstract
Background: Our recent event-related potential (ERP) study showed that adolescents are more emotionally sensitive to negative events compared to adults, regardless of the valence strength of the events. The current work aimed to confirm this age-related difference in response to emotional stimuli of diverse intensities by examining Electroencephalography (EEG) oscillatory power in time-frequency analysis.Methods: Time-frequency analyses were performed on the EEG data recorded for highly negative (HN), moderately negative (MN) and Neutral pictures in 20 adolescents and 20 adults during a covert emotional task. The results showed a significant age by emotion interaction effect in the theta and beta oscillatory power during the 500–600 ms post stimulus.Results: Adolescents showed significantly less pronounced theta synchronization (ERS, 5.5–7.5 Hz) for HN stimuli, and larger beta desynchronization (ERD; 18–20 Hz) for both HN and MN stimuli, in comparison with neutral stimuli. By contrast, adults exhibited no significant emotion effects in theta and beta frequency bands. In addition, the analysis of the alpha spectral power (10.5–12 Hz; 850–950 ms) showed a main effect of emotion, while the emotion by age interaction was not significant. Irrespective of adolescents or adults, HN and MN stimuli elicited enhanced alpha suppression compared to Neutral stimuli, while the alpha power was similar across HN and MN conditions.Conclusions: These results confirmed prior findings that adolescents are more sensitive to emotionally negative stimuli compared to adults, regardless of emotion intensity, possibly due to the developing prefrontal control system during adolescence.
Highlights
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by mood instability, such as more engagement in risky behaviors and persistent negative and labile mood states (Spear, 2000; Ernst et al, 2006; Dahl and Gunnar, 2009; Somerville et al, 2010)
Using a standard/deviant distinction task and event-related potential (ERP) method, our recent study manipulated the intensity of negative stimuli, and observed that adolescents showed enhanced emotion effect to negative stimuli compared to adults in attentional indexes, regardless of the emotional intensity of the stimuli
Theta Analysis (5.5–7.5 Hz, 500–600 ms) There was a significant group by emotion interaction [F(2,76) = 3.16, p < 0.05] (Figure 5)
Summary
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by mood instability, such as more engagement in risky behaviors and persistent negative and labile mood states (Spear, 2000; Ernst et al, 2006; Dahl and Gunnar, 2009; Somerville et al, 2010). It has been reported that the function of prefrontal cortex is immature (Lewis et al, 2006; Blakemore, 2008a,b; Hare et al, 2008), and that prefrontal modulation of subcortical inputs is still developing during adolescence (Lewis et al, 2006; Hare et al, 2008). Using a standard/deviant distinction task and ERP method, our recent study manipulated the intensity of negative stimuli, and observed that adolescents showed enhanced emotion effect to negative stimuli compared to adults in attentional indexes (like, frontal P200, and N200), regardless of the emotional intensity of the stimuli. The current work aimed to confirm this agerelated difference in response to emotional stimuli of diverse intensities by examining Electroencephalography (EEG) oscillatory power in time-frequency analysis
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