Relationship Between Decision Making and Resting-State EEG in Adolescents With Different Emotional Stabilities

Abstract

Despite the varied decision responses are revealed between adolescents with emotional stability and instability (ES and EI), the possible association underlying decision-making and resting-state activity remains unknown. The study explored the potential relationship between the resting-state electroencepha-logram network and decision responses when adolescents with different emotional stabilities participated in the ultimatum game (UG). A significant relationship between the resting-state activa-tion of the two frequency bands (i.e., delta and alpha) and the UG acceptance rate. Further, the ES adolescents mainly activated the frontal cortex in the delta band compared to the EI adolescents, whereas the EI adolescents exhibited stronger frontal-occipital linkages in the alpha band than the ES group. During deci-sion-making, the delta oscillation played a positive role in the cognitive process, while the alpha activity decreased. Finally, emotional stability could be predicted by a multivariable linear prediction model based on the resting-state metrics while adoles-cents made decisions in the UG task. The distinct resting-state electrophysiological evidence may deepen our knowledge of deci-sion-making in individuals with different emotional traits, which may further facilitate the prediction of individual decision be-haviors.