Powering Up Attentional Focus: Validating a School-Based Deep Breathing Intervention with Mobile EEG—A Pilot Exploration

Abstract

Electrophysiological and neuroimaging data are important sources of information for validating the efficacy or effects of interventions. Many interventions for children are carried out in the schools especially if they are educationally relevant. However, factors such as high costs and physical constraints have typically limited the use of electrophysiological and neuroimaging tools to laboratory settings. Despite their reduced capabilities, the appearance of low-cost, quick-to-set-up mobile equipment in recent years have renewed the possibility of applying such techniques to monitor effects in school-based interventions. The current study explores the utility of a low-cost, mobile electroencephalography (EEG) headset system in detecting neurophysiological effects of a school-based deep breathing intervention, found in a previous behavioral study to be efficacious in reducing self-reported state anxiety and enhancing test performance in children. As part of a larger pilot study, EEG, respiration, and behavioral data were collected from a group of right-handed 11-year-olds as they performed a flanker task of attentional focus twice, once with a deep breathing intervention and once without. Results from power spectral analyses suggest that the low-cost, low-resolution, mobile EEG system is able to detect power spectra differences associated with flanker interference and intervention effects.