What Does Electroencephalography Coherence Tell Us about Memory Encoding in Adolescents at High Risk of Suicide?

Background: Suicide is known to be closely related to depression, which is accompanied by cognitive decline. Objective: This study examined whether memory performance and cortical networking differ between high suicide risk and control groups depending on task difficulty. Methods: The participants were 28 high school students consisting of 14 suicide risk and 14 control subjects. Real-time electroencephalography signals were collected during a working memory task. Inter- and intrahemispheric coherences were analyzed. Results: Higher cortical networking during memory encoding was found in suicide risk adolescents compared to the control group. An increase in task difficulty heightened interhemispheric coherence. Conclusions: Higher cortical networking in suicide risk adolescents seems to reflect activation of compensatory mechanisms in an attempt to minimize behavioral decline.