ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1472689
This article is part of the Research TopicUnlocking Brain-Behavior Dynamics: Next-Generation Approaches and MethodsView all 5 articles
EEG Microstates dynamics of Happiness and Sadness during Music Listening
Provisionally accepted
- 1Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
- 2Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- 3Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Mandi, India
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The human brain naturally responds to music, with happy music enhancing attention and sad music aiding emotion regulation. However, the specific electroencephalogram (EEG) microstates linked to these cognitive and emotional effects remain unclear. This study investigated the microstates associated with happiness and sadness, focusing on the alpha band, using classical music as stimuli. Results revealed a significant increase in the presence of class D microstate, associated with attention, during happy music listening. An inverse relationship between class C (linked to mind-wandering) and class D microstates was observed. Analysis of Global Explained Variance (GEV) and Global Field Potential (GFP) indicated that happy music upregulated class D and downregulated class C microstates compared to baseline. In contrast, sad music elicited an increased presence of class B, class C, and class D microstates, with GEV and GFP analysis showing upregulation of class C and class D compared to the resting state. These findings suggest distinct cognitive effects: (1) an increase in class D and reduction in class C microstates explains enhanced attention during happy music listening, and (2) the concurrent upregulation of class C and D microstates underpins enhanced emotion regulation and self-regulatory goals observed upon sad music listening. Notably, compared to baseline, the mean microstate duration was significantly longer for both happy (p = 0.018) and sad (p = 0.0003) music, indicating that music listening enhances the temporal stability of active microstates. These findings advance the understanding of the neural mechanisms underpinning music's cognitive and emotional effects, providing a framework to explore music-induced changes in brain dynamics and their implications for emotion regulation and attentional modulation.
Keywords: EG microstate, emotion, Music, Attention, mind wandering
Received: 29 Jul 2024; Accepted: 14 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gupta, Srivastava, Bhushan and Behera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ashish Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, 208 016, Uttar Pradesh, India
Laxmidhar Behera, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Mandi, India
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