Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety
IntroductionEmotional working memory (WM) plays a critical role in cognitive functions such as emotion regulation, decision-making, and learning. Understanding how emotional stimuli, particularly negative ones, affect WM performance is crucial for identifying cognitive markers of mental health issue...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2025.1574901/full |
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| author | Leiting Li Leiting Li Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Mengdi Qi Yiwen Li Dongwei Li Dongwei Li |
| author_facet | Leiting Li Leiting Li Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Mengdi Qi Yiwen Li Dongwei Li Dongwei Li |
| author_sort | Leiting Li |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | IntroductionEmotional working memory (WM) plays a critical role in cognitive functions such as emotion regulation, decision-making, and learning. Understanding how emotional stimuli, particularly negative ones, affect WM performance is crucial for identifying cognitive markers of mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Our objective is to determine whether trait anxiety and depression levels are associated with specific performance outcomes in emotional WM and whether behavioral and neural indicators demonstrate statistically significant correlations with individual anxiety and depression levels in university students.MethodsIn our research: Experiment 1 (n = 25) tested WM performance with both positive and negative emotional stimuli under different cognitive loads (2 vs. 4 items), while Experiment 2 (n = 34) combined EEG recording to investigate the neural index of anxiety and depression during negative emotional WM.ResultsResults showed that negative emotional stimuli impaired WM performance, especially under higher cognitive loads, with anxiety level being linked to increased theta activity during encoding and depression level associated with decreased alpha activity during retrieval. Additionally, individuals with higher anxiety exhibited reduced sensitivity to cognitive load differences in WM tasks involving negative emotions.DiscussionThese results demonstrated that specific EEG patterns during negative emotional WM were significantly associated with individual anxiety and depression levels, suggesting the potential utility of EEG measures for identifying at-risk individuals of anxiety and depression in university student populations. By linking cognitive and neural indicators, the study contributes to the development of personalized interventions for mental health monitoring and treatment. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-bbca28137b354549a5e28940ea1ebfd9 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1662-453X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj-art-bbca28137b354549a5e28940ea1ebfd92025-08-20T02:31:05ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroscience1662-453X2025-05-011910.3389/fnins.2025.15749011574901Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxietyLeiting Li0Leiting Li1Meirong Sun2Meirong Sun3Meirong Sun4Mengdi Qi5Yiwen Li6Dongwei Li7Dongwei Li8Department of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, ChinaLaboratory of Sports Stress and Adaptation of General Administration of Sport, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, ChinaKey Laboratory of Exercise and Physical Fitness (Beijing Sport University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, ChinaExperimental Teaching Platform, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, ChinaState Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, ChinaBeijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, ChinaIntroductionEmotional working memory (WM) plays a critical role in cognitive functions such as emotion regulation, decision-making, and learning. Understanding how emotional stimuli, particularly negative ones, affect WM performance is crucial for identifying cognitive markers of mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Our objective is to determine whether trait anxiety and depression levels are associated with specific performance outcomes in emotional WM and whether behavioral and neural indicators demonstrate statistically significant correlations with individual anxiety and depression levels in university students.MethodsIn our research: Experiment 1 (n = 25) tested WM performance with both positive and negative emotional stimuli under different cognitive loads (2 vs. 4 items), while Experiment 2 (n = 34) combined EEG recording to investigate the neural index of anxiety and depression during negative emotional WM.ResultsResults showed that negative emotional stimuli impaired WM performance, especially under higher cognitive loads, with anxiety level being linked to increased theta activity during encoding and depression level associated with decreased alpha activity during retrieval. Additionally, individuals with higher anxiety exhibited reduced sensitivity to cognitive load differences in WM tasks involving negative emotions.DiscussionThese results demonstrated that specific EEG patterns during negative emotional WM were significantly associated with individual anxiety and depression levels, suggesting the potential utility of EEG measures for identifying at-risk individuals of anxiety and depression in university student populations. By linking cognitive and neural indicators, the study contributes to the development of personalized interventions for mental health monitoring and treatment.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2025.1574901/fullemotional deficitworking memoryEEGtransdiagnostic methodsanxiety and depression |
| spellingShingle | Leiting Li Leiting Li Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Meirong Sun Mengdi Qi Yiwen Li Dongwei Li Dongwei Li Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety Frontiers in Neuroscience emotional deficit working memory EEG transdiagnostic methods anxiety and depression |
| title | Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| title_full | Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| title_fullStr | Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| title_full_unstemmed | Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| title_short | Neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| title_sort | neural correlates of emotional working memory predict depression and anxiety |
| topic | emotional deficit working memory EEG transdiagnostic methods anxiety and depression |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2025.1574901/full |
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