Using different methods for calculating frontal alpha asymmetry to study its development from infancy to 3 years of age in a large longitudinal sample.

Abstract

Frontal electroencephalography (EEG) alpha asymmetry (FAA), defined as the difference in frontal alpha power observed over the right and left frontal scalp regions, has been widely used in developmental research as a measure of multiple aspects of child behavior, such as temperament. Studies have used different equations to calculate FAA, which renders comparison of results across studies challenging. Furthermore, few studies have examined FAA's longitudinal stability across infancy and early childhood, which is a desirable feature of a temperament measure. We investigated the cross-sectional and the longitudinal correlations of FAA values from four different equations to calculate FAA used in the literature. We used baseline EEG data from a longitudinal sample of 321 infants and 168 3-year-old children (149 of whom had data at both timepoints). Consistent with previous work, FAA values calculated using two commonly used equations were highly correlated with each other cross-sectionally but not with values from a different equation that used log-transformed relative power. The log-transformed relative power FAA values were the only values that showed significant longitudinal stability. These findings suggest that researchers interested in FAA as a trait-like measure in children should consider using the relative power equation that renders stability across ages.