The association between depressive symptoms, physical activity, flow state, and resting-state EEG in college students

Objective Exploring the correlations among physical activity, flow state, and resting-state EEG in college students with depressive symptoms. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 216 college students. Participants completed questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms, physical exercise, and flow proneness, followed by a 5-min resting-state EEG recording. Group differences and associations were examined using independent-samples t-tests, χ² tests, Pearson correlations, and regression-based serial mediation analyses. The primary mediation models were adjusted for sex and self-rated physical health, with unadjusted models reported for comparison. Results Physical exercise was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and greater flow proneness, and significant frontal EEG lateralization differences were observed between students with and without depressive symptoms. In the unadjusted mediation analyses, significant indirect effects were observed through Fp2/Fp1 δ- and α2-band lateralization and through the serial EEG lateralization–flow pathways. However, after adjustment for sex and self-rated physical health, the EEG-related indirect effects were no longer statistically significant in either the δ- or α2-band model. In contrast, the indirect effect through flow proneness alone remained significant in both adjusted models (Ind2), indicating that the flow-related indirect association was more robust to covariate adjustment than the EEG-related pathways. Conclusion There is a close correlation among physical activities, EEG-specific indicators and the state of flow. However, whether the EEG-specific indicators play a mediating role remains to be further verified.