Schedule of Events | Symposia

Reduced Prefrontal EEG Complexity During Speech and Music Listening Reveals Subjective Cognitive Decline

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Matthew King-Hang Ma¹ (khmma@polyu.edu.hk), Manson Cheuk-Man Fong^1,2, Yun Feng¹, William Shiyuan Wang^1,2; ¹Research Centre for Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, ²Research Institute for Smart Ageing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) describes self-perceived worsening of cognitive abilities despite normal performance on cognitive tests. Existing evidence suggests SCD approximately doubles the risk of progressing to MCI and dementia (Pike et al., 2022). Understanding neural changes at this stage is crucial for early diagnosis and treatment. With this in mind, we adopted passive speech and music listening paradigm and recruited 60 Cantonese-speaking older adults (aged 60-70 years; cognitively normal per HK-MoCA). All of them completed the 14-item Subjective Cognitive Decline Scale (SCDS; Tsai et al., 2021). During EEG recording, participants listened to 16 speech and 16 music segments (one minute each, varying in emotional content rated by an independent rating study) and rated their perceived emotions using the Self-Assessment Manikin scale. Resting-state EEG was also collected. To evaluate brain activity alterations across different mental states, we computed the Lempel-Ziv Complexity (LZC), which has been used clinically as a consciousness marker, for each EEG recording. With SCDS scores being a continuous variable, linear mixed-effect model revealed a significant interaction between electrode location and SCDS scores on LZC (F[5, 1307.99] = 3.3632, p < 0.01). Higher SCDS scores corresponded with decreased LZC in prefrontal electrodes, specifically during music and speech conditions. Moreover, in the music condition, self-perceived valence decreased LZC while enjoyment increased it, whereas such results were not observed in the speech condition. Our findings suggest prefrontal EEG complexity reflects self-perceived cognitive decline during passive listening, highlighting LZC's potential as an SCD biomarker beyond its role in measuring consciousness level.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Development & aging