Dynamic Evolution of EEG Complexity in Schizophrenia Across Cognitive Tasks

Schizophrenia is characterized by widespread disruptions in neural connectivity and dynamic modulation. Traditional EEG analyses often rely on static or averaged measures, which may overlook the temporal evolution of neural complexity across cognitive demands. This study employed Higuchi Fractal Dimension, a non-linear measure of signal complexity, to examine the temporal dynamics of EEG activity across five cortical regions (central, frontal, occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes) during an attentional and a memory-based task in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and healthy controls. A permutation-based topographic analysis of variance revealed significant differences in neural complexity between tasks and groups. In the control group, results showed a consistent pattern of higher neural complexity during the attentional task across the different brain regions (except during a few moments in the temporal and occipital regions). This pattern of differentiation in complexity between the attentional and memory tasks reflects healthy individuals’ ability to dynamically modulate neural activity based on task-specific requirements. In contrast, the group of patients with schizophrenia exhibited inconsistent patterns of differences in complexity between tasks over time across all neural regions. That is, differences in complexity between tasks varies across time intervals, being sometimes higher in the attentional task and other times higher in the memory task (especially in the central, frontal, and temporal regions). This inconsistent pattern in patients can explain reduced task-specific modulation of EEG complexity in schizophrenia, and suggests a disruption in the modulation of neural activity on function of task demands. These findings underscore the importance of analyzing the temporal dynamics of EEG complexity to capture task-specific neural modulation.