Individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have been shown to have altered neural gating of respiratory sensations (NGRS) using respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP); however, corresponding neural oscillatory activities remain unexplored. The present study aimed to investigate altered NGRS in individuals with GAD using both time and time-frequency analysis. Nineteen individuals with GAD and 28 healthy controls were recruited. Paired inspiratory occlusions were delivered to elicit cortical neural activations measured from electroencephalography. The GAD group showed smaller N1 amplitudes to the first stimulus (S1), lower evoked gamma and larger evoked beta oscillations compared to controls. Both groups showed larger N1, P3, beta power and theta power in response to S1 compared to S2, suggesting a neural gating phenomenon. These findings suggest that N1, gamma and beta frequency oscillations may be indicators for altered respiratory sensation in GAD populations and that the N1, P3, beta and theta oscillations can reflect the neural gating of respiratory sensations.

患有广泛性焦虑症（GAD）的个体已被证明使用呼吸相关诱发电位（RREP）改变了呼吸感觉的神经门控（NGRS）；然而，相应的神经振荡活动仍未被探索。本研究旨在利用时间和时频分析来调查 GAD 个体中 NGRS 的改变。招募了 19 名 GAD 患者和 28 名健康对照者。进行成对的吸气闭塞以引发通过脑电图测量的皮质神经激活。与对照组相比，GAD 组对第一次刺激 (S1) 表现出更小的 N1 振幅、更低的诱发伽马振荡和更大的诱发β振荡。与 S2 相比，两组对 S1 的响应均表现出更大的 N1、P3、β 功率和 θ 功率，这表明存在神经门控现象。这些发现表明，N1、γ 和 β 频率振荡可能是 GAD 人群呼吸感觉改变的指标，并且 N1、P3、β 和 θ 振荡可以反映呼吸感觉的神经门控。