Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

What EEG Activity Can Tell Us About Wellbeing (#551)

Miranda R Chilver 1 2 , Leanne M Williams 3 , Peter R Schofield 1 2 , Richard Clark 4 , Eddie Harmon-Jones 2 , Justine Gatt 1 2
  1. Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
  4. Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

EEG has long been used to help psychologists understand mental disorders, but minimal work has been done to understand the variation of EEG activity in a healthy population in relation to mental wellbeing. This presentation will discuss findings that indicate an association between EEG activity and mental wellbeing within a mentally healthy sample of over 400 adult twins of all ages. Linear mixed models, univariate twin analysis, and multivariate twin analysis were used to assess the association between resting EEG activity and wellbeing, and estimate the degree to which the association is accounted for by genetic versus environmental factors. Importantly, the results indicate a complex relationship between EEG and wellbeing such that multiple EEG profiles were associated with high wellbeing, and multiple profiles were associated with low wellbeing. Thus, this research suggests that there are multiple pathways to good mental wellbeing, and that different people are likely to benefit from different interventions depending on their baseline EEG profile. This study is the first to find such an association between EEG activity and mental health, and will be used to enhance our understanding of the relationship between EEG activity and brain function.