ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neurorehabilitation
Electrophysiological and Autonomic Biomarkers of Cognitive Arousal: Implications for Stress, Fatigue, and ADHD
Provisionally accepted
- Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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Abstract: Korean Red Ginseng (KRG) has been investigated for its cognitive and physiological impacts. The acute neurophysiological and autonomic responses remain incompletely understood. EEG (Electroencephalography) biomarkers of cortical oscillations and cardiovascular indices may provide sensitive indicators of its action. Methods: Twelve healthy young male participants underwent simultaneous EEG and cardiovascular recording in a within-subject pre–post design. A 20-minute baseline (10 min eyes-open, 10 min eyes-closed) was recorded before ingestion. EEG signals underwent standardized preprocessing, including ICA artifact removal and epoch rejection. EEG spectral power, scalp topography, and cardiovascular analysis (heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), Heart Rate Variability (HRV)) were evaluated for 15 min post-ingestion. Data were analyzed using paired t-tests with False Discovery Rate (FDR) correction. Random forest regression was applied to investigate whether cardiovascular parameters could predict EEG changes. Results: KRG significantly improved frontal theta (t(11) = 2.84, p = 0.016, d = 0.82), parietal alpha (t(11) = 3.01, p = 0.012, d = 0.87), and occipital beta power (t(11) = 2.59, p = 0.025, d = 0.75). No significant changes were observed in delta or gamma bands. Cardiovascular indices (heart rate, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, HRV) did not differ significantly between pre-and post-ginseng. Machine learning models produced modest predictive accuracy (R² = 0.24), with heart rate contributing more strongly than blood pressure measures. Discussion: These results suggest that KRG exerts rapid neuromodulatory effects on cortical oscillatory dynamics in frontal and parietal regions without immediate cardiovascular alterations. Enhanced theta and alpha activity may be relevant to attention and executive control processes, supporting potential applications in cognitive health, rehabilitation, and Implications for stress, fatigue, and executive dysfunction Conclusion: KRG enhances performance on memory-dependent behavioral tasks, and disorders associated with memory dysfunction exhibit characteristic alterations in their EEG profiles in both human and animal subjects. Further well-controlled studies with larger, more representative samples and together with cognitive tasks, are needed to confirm and generalize these results.
Keywords: Korean red ginseng, EEG, theta band, Brain–Heart Coupling, Cognitive arousal, machine learning, Executive Function, cardiovascular
Received: 25 Jul 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Attar. 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: Eyad Talal Attar, etattar@kau.edu.sa
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