Single trial time-frequency domain analysis of error processing in post-traumatic stress disorder

Error processing studies in psychology and psychiatry are relatively common. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are often used as measures of error processing, two such response-locked ERPs being the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error-related positivity (Pe). The ERN and Pe occur following committed error in reaction time tasks as low frequency (4-8Hz) electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillations registered at the midline fronto-central sites. We created an alternative method for analyzing error processing using time-frequency analysis in the form of a wavelet transform. A study was conducted in which subjects with PTSD and healthy control completed a forced-choice task. Single trial EEG data from errors in the task were processed using a continuous wavelet transform. Coefficients from the transform that corresponded to the theta range were averaged to isolate a theta waveform in the time-frequency domain. Measures called the time-frequency ERN and Pe were obtained from these waveforms for five different channels and then averaged to obtain a single time-frequency ERN and Pe for each error trial. A comparison of the amplitude and latency for the time-frequency ERN and Pe between the PTSD and control group was performed. A significant group effect was found on the amplitude of both measures. These results indicate that the developed single trial time-frequency error analysis method is suitable for examining error processing in PTSD and possibly other psychiatric disorders.