Task-state P300 and functional brain network abnormalities in adolescent major depressive disorder: a Stroop paradigm...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Biomarkers

Background:

• Cognitive control deficits are central to adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD).
• Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these deficits during task states are not well understood.
• This study examined electrophysiological changes in adolescents with MDD during a Stroop color-word task.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate electrophysiological alterations in adolescents with MDD.
• To identify potential EEG biomarkers for MDD diagnosis and treatment monitoring.
• To characterize task-state neurophysiological mechanisms associated with cognitive control deficits in adolescent MDD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 32-channel EEG recording in 22 adolescents with MDD and 15 healthy controls (HC) during a Stroop task.
• Analyzed P300 amplitude/latency, power spectral density (PSD) in 1-30Hz range, and functional connectivity (phase locking value).
• Employed a support vector machine (SVM) classifier with leave-one-out cross-validation for diagnostic utility assessment.

Main Results:

• MDD group showed prolonged reaction times, reduced P300 amplitude, and increased alpha/beta-band PSD compared to HC.
• Functional connectivity analysis revealed a shift from frontoparietal to occipitotemporal networks in MDD.
• The multimodal SVM model achieved 86.49% classification accuracy (AUC = 0.86).

Conclusions:

• Task-specific P300 hypoactivity, aberrant oscillatory dynamics, and network reorganization characterize adolescent MDD.
• These findings offer neurophysiological evidence for impaired cognitive control in MDD.
• Identified potential EEG biomarkers for early identification, prognosis, and treatment monitoring in adolescent MDD.