0000000000124564
AUTHOR
Martina Valente
Assessment of mental stress through the analysis of physiological signals acquired from wearable devices
Mental stress is a physiological state that directly correlates to the quality of life of individuals. Generally speaking, but especially true for disabled or elderly subjects, the assessment of such condition represents a very strong indicator correlated to the difficulties, and, in some case, to the frustration that derives from the execution of a task that results troublesome to be accomplished. This article describes a novel procedure for the assessment of the mental stress level through the use of low invasive wireless wearable devices. The information contained in electrocardiogram, respiratory signal, blood volume pulse, and electroencephalogram was extracted to set up an estimator f…
Univariate and multivariate conditional entropy measures for the characterization of short-term cardiovascular complexity under physiological stress
Objective: A defining feature of physiological systems under the neuroautonomic regulation is their dynamical complexity. The most common approach to assess physiological complexity from short-term recordings, i.e. to compute the rate of entropy generation of an individual system by means of measures of conditional entropy (CE), does not consider that complexity may change when the investigated system is part of a network of physiological interactions. This study aims at extending the concept of short-term complexity towards the perspective of network physiology, defining multivariate CE measures whereby multiple physiological processes are accounted for in the computation of entropy rates.…
Multilevel assessment of mental stress via network physiology paradigm using consumer wearable devices
Mental stress is a physiological condition that has a strong negative impact on the quality of life, affecting both the physical and the mental health. For such a reason, accurate measurements of stress level can be helpful to provide mechanisms for prevention and treatment. This paper proposes a procedure for the classification of different mental stress levels by using physiological signals provided by low invasive wearable devices. 17 healthy volunteers participated in this study. Three different mental states were elicited in them: a resting condition, a stressful cognitive state, and a sustained attention task. The acquired physiological signals were: a one lead electrocardiogram (ECG)…
Cardiovascular and respiratory variability during orthostatic and mental stress: A comparison of entropy estimators
The aim of this study is to characterize cardiovascular and respiratory signals during orthostatic and mental stress as reflected in indices of entropy and complexity, providing a comparison between the performance of different estimators. To this end, the heart rate variability, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and respiration time series were extracted from the recordings of 61 healthy volunteers undergoing a protocol consisting of supine rest, head-up tilt test and mental arithmetic task. The analysis was performed in the information domain using measures of entropy and conditional entropy, estimated through model-based (linear) and model-free (binning, nearest neighbor)…