ArticleeLife2021
No relationship between frontal alpha asymmetry and depressive disorders in a multiverse analysis of five studies.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Beyond the label "major depressive disorder"-detailed characterization of study population matters for EEG-biomarker research.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Music in the loop: a systematic review of current neurofeedback methodologies using music.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Subtyping depression using brain-gastric electrophysiology for early prediction of antidepressant response: a multicentric clinical study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Reduced alpha power predicts recurrence risk in major depressive disorder.Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Review
- Hemispheric asymmetry in depressive symptoms is associated with sex-divergent functional brain connectivity patterns.iScience · 2026Article
- Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and Electrodermal Activity: A Mutual Information Analysis Across Cognitive Load and Sleep Deprivation.Biosensors · 2026Article
- Reducing state anxiety with alpha-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation.Research square · 2026Article
- Infant frontal alpha asymmetry predicts social attention and transdiagnostic risk for emotional reactivity.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- "Prideful Apathy": A Phenomenological-Psychopathological Study of Emotion Engagement and Regulation Tasks.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Quantitative electroencephalography as a next-generation tool in neurodiagnostics: significance, clinical applications, and practical interpretative frameworks.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Clinical efficacy and safety of sequential accelerated theta burst stimulation for suicidal ideation in adults with major depressive disorder: study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Rhythmic activity in resting-state EEG predicts trait anxiety.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Advances, challenges, and prospects of electroencephalography-based biomarkers for psychiatric disorders: a narrative review.Journal of Yeungnam medical science · 2024Article
- Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and Its Modulation by Monoaminergic Neurotransmitters in Depression.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Review
- Frontal alpha asymmetry during emotion regulation in adults with lifetime major depression.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
- Multimodal and hemispheric graph-theoretical brain network predictors of learning efficacy for frontal alpha asymmetry neurofeedback.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2024Article
- Metric comparison of connectome-based lesion-symptom mapping in post-stroke aphasia.Brain communications · 2024Article
- Clinical EEG slowing induced by electroconvulsive therapy is better described by increased frontal aperiodic activity.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Magnetic seizure therapy and electroconvulsive therapy increase aperiodic activity.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
For decades, the frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) - a disproportion in EEG alpha oscillations power between right and left frontal channels - has been one of the most popular measures of depressive disorders (DD) in electrophysiology studies. Patients with DD often manifest a left-sided FAA: relatively higher alpha power in the left versus right frontal lobe. Recently, however, multiple studies failed to confirm this effect, questioning its reproducibility. Our purpose is to thoroughly test the validity of FAA in depression by conducting a multiverse analysis - running many related analyses and testing the sensitivity of the effect to changes in the analytical approach - on data from five independent studies. Only 13 of the 270 analyses revealed significant results. We conclude the paper by discussing theoretical assumptions underlying the FAA and suggest a list of guidelines for improving and expanding the EEG data analysis in future FAA studies.
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