Quantitative EEG abnormalities in major depressive disorder with basal ganglia stroke with lesions in different hemispheres

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to examine the aberrant EEG oscillation in major depressive subjects with basal ganglia stroke with lesions in different hemispheres.

Methods: Resting EEG of 16 electrodes in 58 stroke subjects, 26 of whom had poststroke depression (13 with left-hemisphere lesion and 13 with right) and 32 of whom did not (18 with left lesion and 14 with right), was recorded to obtain spectral power analysis for several frequency bands. Multiple analysis of variance and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to identify differences between poststroke depression (PSD) and poststroke non-depression (PSND), treating the different lesion hemispheres separately. Moreover, Pearson linear correlation analysis was conducted to test the severity of depressive symptoms and EEG indices.

Results: PSD with left-hemisphere lesion showed increased beta2 power in frontal and central areas, but PSD with right-hemisphere lesion showed increased theta and alpha power mainly in occipital and temporal regions. Additionally, for left-hemisphere lesions, beta2 power in central and right parietal regions provided high discrimination between PSD and PSND, and for right-hemisphere lesions, theta power was similarly discriminative in most regions, especially temporal regions. We also explored the association between symptoms of depression and the power of abnormal bands, but we found no such relationship.

Limitations: The sample size was relatively small and included subjects with different lesions of the basal ganglia.

Conclusions: The aberrant EEG oscillation in subjects with PSD differs between subjects with lesions of the left and right hemispheres, suggesting a complex association between depression and lesion location in stroke patients.

Keywords: Basal ganglia infarction; Lesion hemisphere; Major depressive disorder; Quantitative EEG; Spectral analysis.