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Stress Detection and Reduction Based on Simultaneous Measurement of EEG and fNIRS Signals

Fares Al-Shargie1*
  • 1 American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Background: We all suffer from stress in our daily life. Stress has a negative impact on both physical as well as mental health. Literature has developed a large number of techniques to monitor and detect stress level at its early stage (Al-Shargie et al., 2016a; Al-shargie et al., 2016b; Al-shargie et al., 2018; Lim et al., 2018; Peake et al., 2018; Rosenbaum et al., 2018; Lotfan et al., 2019). These studies showed that, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the most sensitive brain region stress. Another studies tried to mitigate the stress using different cognitive, emotional and physical activities, see (Gu et al., 2015; Subhani et al., 2018). Nevertheless, it is not clear which physical activities could significantly alter the structure and functioning of the brain thereby reduce stress level and improve the quality of life. Goal: This research aims to investigate the effects of five days mild-exercise on PFC activities as a means to reduce stress. The assessment of PFC activities before and after intervention is conducted using simultaneous measurement of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging techniques. Methods: Twenty male, young adults (aged 22 ± 2) who had not committed to regular exercise in the past five months participated in this study. All participants performed computerized version of the Stroop Color-Word matching (SCW) under time pressure and negative feedback, developed in our laboratory and presented in a random order to avoid the effects of habituation. The entire experiment performed in three phases and took a total of 7 days from phase one to phase three. In the first phase, in day number one; EEG+fNIRS probe holder was attached to the participant’s head and signals were simultaneously recorded while participants performing the SCW test for a total duration of 10 minutes. In the second phase, in day number two to-day-number six; each of the participant performed an aerobic exercise twice a day for a duration time of 40 minutes (20 min early morning at 8.0 am and 20 min in the evening at 5.0 pm). During exercise sessions, all participants kept their heart beat rate above 120 beats per minute. In the third phase, in day number seven; again, EEG+fNIRS signals were measured while participants performing the same SCW test for a total duration of 10 minutes. At the end of phase one and phase three, all participants filled in a self-report questionnaire about workload using NASA-TLX (Hart and Staveland, 1988). EEG signals were measured using BrainMaster 24E system with 7-electrodes; FP1, F7, F3, Fz, FP2, F8, and F4 covering the entire PFC, with one reference electrode A1 attached to the ear lobe, sampled at 256 Hz. The fNIRS signals measured using OT-R40, Hitachi Medical Corp, Japan) with 23 channels sampled at 10 Hz, and arranged according to the 10-20 system as shown in Fig.1. The EEG and fNIRS signals were preprocessed in the way as in our previous studies (Al-Shargie et al., 2016a; Al-Shargie et al., 2017a; Al-Shargie et al., 2017b). EEG power features were extracted at three different frequency bands; Theta: 4-8 Hz, Alpha: 8-13 Hz and Beta: 14-30 Hz in the temporal domain and fNIRS features were based on the mean of oxygenated hemoglobin (O2Hb) at the frequency interval of 0.001- 0.1 Hz, respectively. Two-tailed t-test was performed to determine the effects of exercise (compare before and after exercise) on PFC activities on both: EEG and fNIRS signals. Results and Conclusion: All participants reported significant reduce in their workload level when performing the SCW after five-days of exercises compare to before exercises as assessed by NASA-TLX, p<0.001. Similarly, the results of EEG showed significant increase in theta and alpha power rhythms with decrease in beta rhythm when performing the SCW after five-days of exercises as compared to stress before exercise. Figure 2 shows the results of theta, alpha and beta power rhythms during the pre-exercise (stress before exercise) and post-exercise (stress after five-day of exercises) as well as the differences between them. The t-values showed that, five-days of exercise significantly improve PFC activities over the right ventrolateral PFC as demonstrated by all the EEG t-maps, p<0.0001. Likewise, fNIRS showed significant increase in O2Hb when performing SCW after five-days of exercises compared to before, as shown in Fig.2. Nevertheless, only the right ventrolateral PFC show significant improvements in O2Hb with p<0.00005. The overall results confirm that five days of mild exercise could significantly improve brain activities under stress, specifically over the right ventrolateral PFC and propose it as a means to reduce stress level.

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References

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Keywords: EEG, fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy), PFC, stress, Exercice

Conference: 4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 10 Mar - 11 Mar, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Educational Neuroscience

Citation: Al-Shargie F (2019). Stress Detection and Reduction Based on Simultaneous Measurement of EEG and fNIRS Signals. Conference Abstract: 4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.229.00011

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Received: 05 Feb 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Fares Al-Shargie, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, fares.yahya@adu.ac.ae