Association Between Spatiotemporal Properties of Global Brain Activity and Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Evidence from Microstate C.

This study aimed to examine the spatiotemporal properties of resting‑state global brain network activity and their associations with emotional and behavioral functioning in children. Resting‑state electroencephalography (EEG) was acquired in 83 children aged 6-7 years. Microstate features were extracted via K‑means clustering, and partial least squares (PLS) regression was used to characterize multivariate associations between microstate temporal metrics (global explained variance, duration, occurrence, and coverage) and parent‑rated scores on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Results demonstrated that four canonical microstate classes were already present in 6-7-year-old children, with microstate C showing dominance across temporal parameters. PLS revealed that the temporal parameters of microstate C were positively associated with total CBCL scores, whereas no significant relationships were observed for the other microstate classes. These findings suggest that neural dynamics indexed by microstate C may be associated with individual differences in emotional and behavioral regulation in 6-7-year-old children, highlighting its potential as an electrophysiological marker of neurobehavioral development.