Resting-State EEG Aperiodic Activity and Negative Affective Vulnerability: The Mediating Role of Big Five Personality Traits

Introduction

Resting-state EEG aperiodic parameters characterize the broadband background component of neural activity. The offset reflects overall broadband power and has been linked to population-level firing, whereas the exponent is often interpreted, within a theoretical framework, as an indirect proxy for cortical excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance. These measures may therefore provide candidate neurophysiological trait markers of negative affective vulnerability, but it remains unclear whether their associations with trait anxiety and trait depression are direct or are statistically accounted for by stable personality traits.