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Analysis of EEG Patterns in Subjects with Panic Attacks

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Abstract

The dynamics of the photic driving reaction was studied in subjects with panic attacks, using wavelet and recurrence analyses of electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns. Quantitative measures of the driving reaction to the given frequency were estimated from the increase in the energy of the wavelet spectrum during photostimulation, the coefficient of photic driving, and parameters of a joint recurrence plot of the light stimulus and EEG pattern (the rate and time of recurrence of the EEG trajectory into the vicinity of a previous point). The parameters were determined before and after non-drug therapy, which included activation and training of artificial stable functional connections (ASFCs) in the brain. The formation of ASFCs was found to decrease both asymmetry in occipital lobe responses to the photostimulus and the degree of neuroticism in subjects with panic attacks. The changes were reflected in decreasing values of the photic driving coefficient and recurrence rate and increasing values of the recurrence time. The improvement of the subject’s psychophysiological state after a course of ASFC activation was confirmed by a positive dynamics of psychophysiological testing data.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to N.A. Seliverstova for help in processing the results of psychophysiological tests.

Funding

This work was supported by the Program of Basic Research at the State Academies of Sciences from 2013 to 2020 (GP-14, Section 64).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    O. E. Dick, I. A. Svyatogor & A. D. Nozdrachev

  2. Institute of Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    T. N. Reznikova & D. A. Fedoryaka

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  1. O. E. Dick
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  2. I. A. Svyatogor
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  3. T. N. Reznikova
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  4. D. A. Fedoryaka
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  5. A. D. Nozdrachev
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Correspondence to O. E. Dick.

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Conflict of interests. The authors declare that they have no real or potential conflict of interest.

Statement of compliance with standards of research involving humans as subjects. All procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments and were approved by the local Ethics Committee at the Bechtereva Institute of Human Brain (St. Petersburg) (Ethics Committee protocol dated April 18, 2013). All individual participants involved in the study voluntarily gave written informed consent for participation after being informed about potential risks and benefits and the study nature.

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Translated by T. Tkacheva

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Dick, O.E., Svyatogor, I.A., Reznikova, T.N. et al. Analysis of EEG Patterns in Subjects with Panic Attacks. Hum Physiol 46, 163–174 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119720010065

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