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Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG

Over the last decade, virtual reality (VR) has become an increasingly accessible commodity. Head-mounted display (HMD) immersive technologies allow researchers to simulate experimental scenarios that would be unfeasible or risky in real life. An example is extreme heights exposure simulations, which...

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Autores principales: Aspiotis, Vasileios, Miltiadous, Andreas, Kalafatakis, Konstantinos, Tzimourta, Katerina D., Giannakeas, Nikolaos, Tsipouras, Markos G., Peschos, Dimitrios, Glavas, Euripidis, Tzallas, Alexandros T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9371026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35957348
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22155792
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author Aspiotis, Vasileios
Miltiadous, Andreas
Kalafatakis, Konstantinos
Tzimourta, Katerina D.
Giannakeas, Nikolaos
Tsipouras, Markos G.
Peschos, Dimitrios
Glavas, Euripidis
Tzallas, Alexandros T.
author_facet Aspiotis, Vasileios
Miltiadous, Andreas
Kalafatakis, Konstantinos
Tzimourta, Katerina D.
Giannakeas, Nikolaos
Tsipouras, Markos G.
Peschos, Dimitrios
Glavas, Euripidis
Tzallas, Alexandros T.
author_sort Aspiotis, Vasileios
collection PubMed
description Over the last decade, virtual reality (VR) has become an increasingly accessible commodity. Head-mounted display (HMD) immersive technologies allow researchers to simulate experimental scenarios that would be unfeasible or risky in real life. An example is extreme heights exposure simulations, which can be utilized in research on stress system mobilization. Until recently, electroencephalography (EEG)-related research was focused on mental stress prompted by social or mathematical challenges, with only a few studies employing HMD VR techniques to induce stress. In this study, we combine a state-of-the-art EEG wearable device and an electrocardiography (ECG) sensor with a VR headset to provoke stress in a high-altitude scenarios while monitoring EEG and ECG biomarkers in real time. A robust pipeline for signal clearing is implemented to preprocess the noise-infiltrated (due to movement) EEG data. Statistical and correlation analysis is employed to explore the relationship between these biomarkers with stress. The participant pool is divided into two groups based on their heart rate increase, where statistically important EEG biomarker differences emerged between them. Finally, the occipital-region band power changes and occipital asymmetry alterations were found to be associated with height-related stress and brain activation in beta and gamma bands, which correlates with the results of the self-reported Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire.
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spelling pubmed-93710262022-08-12 Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG Aspiotis, Vasileios Miltiadous, Andreas Kalafatakis, Konstantinos Tzimourta, Katerina D. Giannakeas, Nikolaos Tsipouras, Markos G. Peschos, Dimitrios Glavas, Euripidis Tzallas, Alexandros T. Sensors (Basel) Article Over the last decade, virtual reality (VR) has become an increasingly accessible commodity. Head-mounted display (HMD) immersive technologies allow researchers to simulate experimental scenarios that would be unfeasible or risky in real life. An example is extreme heights exposure simulations, which can be utilized in research on stress system mobilization. Until recently, electroencephalography (EEG)-related research was focused on mental stress prompted by social or mathematical challenges, with only a few studies employing HMD VR techniques to induce stress. In this study, we combine a state-of-the-art EEG wearable device and an electrocardiography (ECG) sensor with a VR headset to provoke stress in a high-altitude scenarios while monitoring EEG and ECG biomarkers in real time. A robust pipeline for signal clearing is implemented to preprocess the noise-infiltrated (due to movement) EEG data. Statistical and correlation analysis is employed to explore the relationship between these biomarkers with stress. The participant pool is divided into two groups based on their heart rate increase, where statistically important EEG biomarker differences emerged between them. Finally, the occipital-region band power changes and occipital asymmetry alterations were found to be associated with height-related stress and brain activation in beta and gamma bands, which correlates with the results of the self-reported Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire. MDPI 2022-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9371026/ /pubmed/35957348 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22155792 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Aspiotis, Vasileios
Miltiadous, Andreas
Kalafatakis, Konstantinos
Tzimourta, Katerina D.
Giannakeas, Nikolaos
Tsipouras, Markos G.
Peschos, Dimitrios
Glavas, Euripidis
Tzallas, Alexandros T.
Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title_full Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title_fullStr Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title_short Assessing Electroencephalography as a Stress Indicator: A VR High-Altitude Scenario Monitored through EEG and ECG
title_sort assessing electroencephalography as a stress indicator: a vr high-altitude scenario monitored through eeg and ecg
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9371026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35957348
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22155792
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