{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]],"date-time":"2026-07-15T07:06:58Z","timestamp":1784099218148,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]],"date-time":"2026-07-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784073600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychiatry"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Academic burnout is a mental-health-relevant outcome of higher-education stress, but its relationship with spontaneous brain dynamics remains unclear. EEG microstates are quasi-stable scalp-potential configurations indexing millisecond-level transitions between large-scale resting brain states. This study tested whether resting-state EEG microstate dynamics are associated with academic burnout beyond trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and general self-efficacy as perceived coping capacity.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Participants were 330 Chinese undergraduates (94 men, 236 women; mean age = 18.31 years, SD\u00a0=\u00a00.84). They completed self-report measures and an eyes-closed resting-state EEG recording. Academic burnout total score was the primary outcome. Covariate-adjusted partial correlations examined burnout\u2013microstate associations. Hierarchical regression tested the incremental value of selected microstate markers.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Higher academic burnout was associated with higher trait anxiety (r = 0.539, p &amp;lt; 0.001), higher depressive symptoms (r = 0.526, p &amp;lt; 0.001), and lower general self-efficacy (r = -0.474, p &amp;lt; 0.001). After adjustment for age, sex, trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and general self-efficacy, greater burnout was associated with shorter microstate D duration (partial r = -0.196, q = 0.0049), higher microstate C occurrence (partial r = 0.172, q = 0.0081), shorter mean microstate duration, and higher mean occurrence. The psychological block explained substantial variance in burnout (R\u00b2 = 0.417); adding microstate D duration and microstate C occurrence produced a small but significant improvement in model fit (\u0394R\u00b2 = 0.025, p = 0.001). In a scale-midpoint sensitivity analysis, the higher-burnout group showed shorter class D duration after covariate adjustment (adjusted B = -3.38 ms, 95% CI [-6.12, -0.64], p = 0.016). Dimension-specific analyses indicated that microstate associations were mainly evident for dejection and low sense of accomplishment, not the behavioral (improper-behavior) component.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Academic burnout in undergraduates was primarily linked to internalizing distress and lower perceived coping capacity. Resting-state EEG microstate dynamics, especially shorter class D duration, provided modest incremental information, suggesting reduced temporal persistence of a canonical resting-state configuration among students with higher burnout. These findings do not establish a diagnostic EEG marker or a burnout-specific neural mechanism, but support multimodal, context-sensitive research on academic stress and mental health in higher education.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1867360","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]],"date-time":"2026-07-15T06:11:37Z","timestamp":1784095897000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Academic burnout in higher education: a multimodal study of resting-state EEG microstate correlates beyond trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and self-efficacy in Chinese undergraduates"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Jianxu","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Education, Shaanxi Normal University","place":["Xi\u2019an, Shaanxi, China"]},{"name":"College of Education Science, Xinyang Normal 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