Electroencephalographic correlates of human emotional stress.

Experiments showed that emotional stress is accompanied in humans by depression of the EEG alpha rhythm when the subject is attentive to the environment, and by alpha rhythm exaltation when he is imagining emotionally colored events. It is assumed that alpha rhythm reflects the activity of a mechanism quantitating the flow of external signals, whereas theta rhythm is connected with the quantity of engrams extracted from memory. Interaction of excited and inhibiting nervous structures, determining the dynamics of EEG changes, is discussed in terms of the mathematical model of V. Volterra.