Dimensional complexity of the EEG in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder

• Published in: Psychiatry research Vol. 131; no. 1; pp. 79 - 89
• Main Authors: Chae, Jeong-Ho, Jeong, Jaeseung, Peterson, Bradley S., Kim, Dai-Jin, Bahk, Won-Myong, Jun, Tae-Youn, Kim, Soo-Yong, Kim, Kwang-Soo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 30.05.2004; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Anxiety disorders. Neuroses; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Computer Graphics; Dimensional complexity; Electroencephalography; Electroencephalography - statistics & numerical data; Electrophysiology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Information processing; Male; Mathematical Computing; Medical sciences; Mental Processes - physiology; Middle Aged; Non-linear dynamical analysis; Nonlinear Dynamics; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Posttraumatic stress disorder; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reference Values; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Statistics as Topic; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - diagnosis; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - physiopathology; Posttraumatic stress disorder; Electroencephalography; Dimensional complexity; Non-linear dynamical analysis; Information processing; Human; Cerebral cortex; Posttraumatic syndrome; Central nervous system; Anxiety disorder; Electrophysiology; Cognition; Stress; Spectral analysis; Encephalon
• ISSN: 0925-4927; 0165-1781; 1872-7506
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2003.05.002

Recent electrophysiological studies have reported evidence of information processing abnormalities in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The aim of this study is to examine dynamical complexity of the EEG in PTSD patients, which is thought to reflect information processing of the brain. Resting EEG recordings (32 800 data points acquired continuously from 82 s of an EEG record) were obtained in 16 channels of 27 patients with PTSD from a mixed civilian trauma population and 14 healthy subjects. The correlation dimension ( D 2) of the EEG was used to quantify the complexity of the cortical dynamics underlying the EEG signal. The PTSD patients were found to have lower D 2 values than those of the healthy subjects in most channels (Fp1, F8, C4, P4, T3, T4, T5, T6, and O1), indicating that PTSD patients have globally reduced complexity in their EEG waveforms. This study supports the hypotheses that PTSD patients exhibit disturbed cortical information processing, and that non-linear dynamical analysis of the EEG can be a tool for detecting changes in neurodynamics of the brain in PTSD.