Emotion processing in Parkinson's disease: an EEG spectral power study

Objective: Although an emotional deficit is a common finding in Parkinson's disease (PD), its neurobiological mechanism on emotion recognition is still unknown. This study examined the emotion processing deficits in PD patients using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in response to multimodal stimuli. Method: EEG signals were investigated on both positive and negative emotions in 14 PD patients and 14 aged-matched normal controls (NCs). The relative power (i.e., ratio of EEG signal power in each frequency band compared to the total EEG power) was computed over three brain regions: the anterior (AF3, F7, F3, F4, F8 and AF4), central (FC5 and FC6) and posterior (T7, P7, O1, O2, P8 and T8) regions for theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz) and gamma (30–60 Hz) frequency sub-bands, respectively. Results: Behaviorally, PD patients showed decreased performance in classifying emotional stimuli as measured by subjective ratings. EEG power at theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands in all regions were signi...