Individual dynamics of delta–beta coupling: using a multilevel framework to examine inter- and intraindividual differences in relation to social anxiety and behavioral inhibition

Background: Variation in EEG-derived delta–beta coupling has recently emerged as a potential neural marker of emotion regulation, providing a novel and noninvasive method for assessing a risk factor for anxiety. However, our understanding of delta–beta coupling has been limited to group-level comparisons, which provide limited information about an individual’s neural dynamics. Methods: The present study used multilevel modeling to map second-by-second coupling patterns between delta and beta power. Specifically, we examined how inter- and intraindividual delta–beta coupling patterns changed as a function of social anxiety symptoms and temperamental behavioral inhibition (BI). Results: We found that stronger inter- and intraindividual delta–beta coupling were both associated with social anxiety. In contrast, the high-BI group showed weaker coupling relative to the non-BI group, a pattern that did not emerge when analyzing continuous scores of BI. Conclusions: In characterizing inter- and intraindividual coupling across the sample, we illustrate the utility of examining neural processes across levels of analysis in relation to psychopathology to create multilevel assessments of functioning and risk.