Math anxiety: Brain cortical network changes in anticipation of doing mathematics

• Published in: International journal of psychophysiology Vol. 122; pp. 24 - 31
• Main Authors: Klados, Manousos A., Pandria, Niki, Micheloyannis, Sifis, Margulies, Daniel, Bamidis, Panagiotis D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.12.2017
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis of Variance; Anxiety - etiology; Anxiety - pathology; Attention - physiology; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Cortical networks; Electroencephalography; Female; Functional connectivity; Graph theory; Humans; Male; Math anxiety; Mathematics; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Nerve Net - physiology; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Young Adult; AMAS; CC; Functional connectivity; LMA; Cortical networks; Graph theory; BEM; SWN; DEN; ACT; MA; Math anxiety; MSC; HMA; CPL
• ISSN: 0167-8760; 1872-7697
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.05.003

Following our previous work regarding the involvement of math anxiety (MA) in math-oriented tasks, this study tries to explore the differences in the cerebral networks' topology between self-reported low math-anxious (LMA) and high math-anxious (HMA) individuals, during the anticipation phase prior to a mathematical related experiment. For this reason, multichannel EEG recordings were adopted, while the solution of the inverse problem was applied in a generic head model, in order to obtain the cortical signals. The cortical networks have been computed for each band separately, using the magnitude square coherence metric. The main graph theoretical parameters, showed differences in segregation and integration in almost all EEG bands of the HMAs in comparison to LMAs, indicative of a great influence of the anticipatory anxiety prior to mathematical performance. •High Math Anxious (HMA) group shows more effective functional organization in contrast to the Low Math Anxious (LMA) group.•HMAs need more effort to regulate their negative emotions and reach a comparable performance to LMAs, having denser networks.•Networks of the LMA group show less reactivity, since the upcoming math task was no accompanied by the feeling of anxiety.•There is a positive (negative) correlation between the segregation (integration) and the levels of math anxiety.