Directed brain network analysis in anxious and non-anxious depression based on EEG source reconstruction and graph theory

Abstract

Patients with anxious depression have more severe symptoms, more side effects, and higher resistance to treatment than patients with non-anxious depression; therefore, it is crucial to clarify the differences between these two types of patients. In this study, a 5-minute resting EEG was recorded in 15 patients with anxious depression and 9 patients with non-anxious depression under eyes open and closed conditions. Sixty-eight subcortical regions were extracted using exact low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (eLORETA). The directed transfer function was then used to construct brain networks. Specific features based on graph theory including the strength of connectivity and betweenness centrality (BC) were calculated from the networks. Finally, significant features were selected using the Mann-Whitney U test, and patients were classified into anxious and non-anxious depressive groups using the Support Vector Machine (SVM). Results showed that features of outward connectivity strength led to the highest accuracy, F-score, and specificity with 91.66%, 87. 5%, and 100% in the eyes-closed state, respectively. Moreover, we found that the strength of connectivity in both directions increased for the anxious depressive group during the eyes-open state. In particular, higher outward connectivity was observed in the right hemisphere for the anxious depressive group. Further findings also revealed that features with the most significant difference were mainly associated with the beta band. In addition, significant increased inward and outward connectivity and decreased nodal centrality were observed in the posterior regions of the default mode network. These preliminary findings might provide new insights into the recognition of anxious depressed patients.