The Method to Obtain the Rise and Fall of Anxiety, Estrogen, Progesterone and EEG Signals and Their Coincident Frequencies

Abstract

Anxiety is a frequent mood disorder that occurs in females during the menstrual cycle. Little is known on a relation among anxiety, sex hormones and electroencephalographic signals in females. Although a relation between anxiety and EEG signals has been suggested, it is not known when anxiety starts to rise and when it falls and which is its relation with the rise and fall of the EEG and sex hormone signals. This investigation proposes a procedure to calculate the rise and fall of their signals and their frequencies using a short-time Fourier transform for a long-time period on anteriorly described dataset of absolute power of brain signals delta, theta, alpha1, alpha2, beta1 and beta2, estrogen, progesterone and anxiety scores along 28 days of the menstrual cycle. The comparison of each brain signal with sex hormones and anxiety signals, revealed that anxiety frequency 3 (every ten days), rose on day 8 and fell on day 18, a pattern which coincided with estrogen, progesterone and alpha1 frequencies. The estrogens rose on day 1 and fell on day 13, which coincided with delta, alpha1 and alpha2 frequencies, while the progesterone rose on day 11 and fell on day 25, which coincided with theta, alpha2, beta1 and beta2 frequencies, extending until the end of the menstrual cycle. When the anxiety frequency began its fall, the frequencies of alpha2, beta1 and beta2 began to rise between days 15 and 21. The proposed method allowed understanding that the anxiety associated with the menstrual cycle coincides with the rise and fall of frequencies of sex hormones and EEG signals. This procedure can be applied to analyze severe anxiety disorders and conduct to the provision of the appropriate treatment.