Research on Physiological Reactions to Bath Salts Aroma

The bath salts is high-profile as its distinctive aroma makes people relaxed with fresh and energetic feelings. EEG is analyzed with the lavipeditum bath method in this study and the physiological reactions (relaxation effects) are discussed and investigated in order to provide basic data for developing the practical products that can make life more comfortable and affluent by quantification for its effect. The experiment demonstrates that the physiological reaction generated by bath salts aroma is composed of the factor of energy difference value of the mid-alpha wave of the frontal lobe in the emotion field. The analysis on energy difference value of the mid-alpha wave  that can cause physiological reaction in this experiment. In general, the aroma that induces a higher physiological reaction is the pomelo, green apple, sakura, rose, chamomile, peppermint for both sexes

A longitudinal study of cortical EEG to olfactory stimulation : involving inter- and intra- subjective responses

This thesis forms the largest and most systematic study of the topographical EEG response to odour. The evolutionary history of the olfactory sense is briefly presented and its relevance to humans in the present day is considered. This thesis examines the information processing that occurs in this sensory system. The type of processing that the olfactory system utilises at each anatomical stage is discussed. The character of olfactory information that may reach neocortical levels in humans is considered in the light of the technology available to detect such information. The neurogenesis of the EEG is considered, together with questions concerning its postulated functional significance. The empirical work carried out uses the most advanced methodology for this type of study. The large number of odourants and subjects, combined with the longitudinal element, make this the most ambitious study of this nature undertaken. The issues surrounding the analysis and interpretation of EEG data arc fully discussed and the impact of Chaos theory is considered. Five major analysis techniques were used on the data collected, but largely negative findings arc reported. The reasons for the failure of this experimental paradigm are discussed and improvements arc suggested for future work. The major contribution of this thesis lies in its exploration of the assumptions of the EEG response to odour. The thesis notes the lack of a conceptual framework that has hindered progress in the area of the "odour" EEG. Recent developments in neural network theory and Chaos theory are highlighted as possible alternative approaches to the modelling and understanding of the olfactory system

Gamification in stroke rehabilitation

Stroke has a high incidence in the population and it is one of the leading causes of functional impairments among adults. Brain damage rehabilitation is still a relatively undeveloped field and some research lines are following functional motor recovery. Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) provides new techniques to overcome stroke-related motor impairments. Recent studies present the brain’s capacity in order to promote the brain plasticity. The use of the BCI for rehabilitation tries to foster three mechanisms of neuropsychology that have proven to be of radical impact in brain function recovery: Motor Imagery, Mirror Neuron and Sensoriomotor loop. In this project, we present a pilot study with a rehabilitation session based on BCI system combined with gamification. We try to demonstrate that including gamification in the rehabilitation sessions the performance is the same as the base avatar, but the engagement and entertainment of patients increase. In this pilot study is explained the whole design and development of the gamification session as well as the intervention with real patients

Assessment and Scientific Progresses in the Analysis of Olfactory Evoked Potentials

The human sense of smell is important for many vital functions, but with the current state of the art, there is a lack of objective and non-invasive methods for smell disorder diagnostics. In recent years, increasing attention is being paid to olfactory event-related potentials (OERPs) of the brain, as a viable tool for the objective assessment of olfactory dysfunctions. The aim of this review is to describe the main features of OERPs signals, the most widely used recording and processing techniques, and the scientific progress and relevance in the use of OERPs in many important application fields. In particular, the innovative role of OERPs is exploited in olfactory disorders that can influence emotions and personality or can be potential indicators of the onset or progression of neurological disorders. For all these reasons, this review presents and analyzes the latest scientific results and future challenges in the use of OERPs signals as an attractive solution for the objective monitoring technique of olfactory disorder

Forefront users\u2019 experience evaluation by employing together virtual reality and electroencephalography: A case study on cognitive effects of scents

Scents have the ability to affect peoples\u2019 mental states and task performance with to different extents. It has been widely demonstrated that the lemon scent, included in most all-purpose cleaners, elicits stimulation and activation, while the lavender scent elicits relaxation and sedative effects. The present study aimed at investigating and fostering a novel approach to evaluate users\u2019 experience with respect to scents\u2019 effects through the joint employment of Virtual Reality and users\u2019 neurophysiological monitoring, in particular Electroencephalography. In particular, this study, involving 42 participants, aimed to compare the effects of lemon and lavender scents on the deployment of cognitive resources during a daily life experience consisting in a train journey carried out in virtual reality. Our findings showed a significant higher request of cognitive resources during the processing of an informative message for subjects exposed to the lavender scent with respect to the lemon exposure. No differences were found between lemon and lavender conditions on the self\u2010reported items of pleasantness and involvement; as this study demonstrated, the employment of the lavender scent preserves the quality of the customer experience to the same extent as the more widely used lemon scent

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 128, May 1974

This special bibliography lists 282 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1974

Forefront users’ experience evaluation by employing together virtual reality and electroencephalography: a case study on cognitive effects of scents

Scents have the ability to affect peoples’ mental states and task performance with to different extents. It has been widely demonstrated that the lemon scent, included in most all-purpose cleaners, elicits stimulation and activation, while the lavender scent elicits relaxation and sedative effects. The present study aimed at investigating and fostering a novel approach to evaluate users’ experience with respect to scents’ effects through the joint employment of Virtual Reality and users’ neurophysiological monitoring, in particular Electroencephalography. In particular, this study, involving 42 participants, aimed to compare the effects of lemon and lavender scents on the deployment of cognitive resources during a daily life experience consisting in a train journey carried out in virtual reality. Our findings showed a significant higher request of cognitive resources during the processing of an informative message for subjects exposed to the lavender scent with respect to the lemon exposure. No differences were found between lemon and lavender conditions on the self-reported items of pleasantness and involvement; as this study demonstrated, the employment of the lavender scent preserves the quality of the customer experience to the same extent as the more widely used lemon scent

Perception of Social Odor and Gender-Related Differences Investigated Through the Use of Transfer Entropy and Embodied Medium

The perception of putative pheromones or social odors (PPSO) in humans is a widely debated topic because the published results seem ambiguous. Our research aimed to evaluate how cross-modal processing of PPSO and gender voice can affect the behavioral and psychophysiological states of the subject during a listening task with a bodily contact medium, and how these effects could be gender related. Before the experimental session, three embodied media, were exposed to volatilized estratetraenol (Estr), 5α-androst-16-en-3 α-ol (Andr), and Vaseline oil. The experimental session consisted in listening to a story that were transmitted, with a male or female voice, by the communicative medium via a Bluetooth system during a listening task, recorded through 64-active channel electroencephalography (EEG). The sense of co-presence and social presence, elicited by the medium, showed how the established relationship with the medium was gender dependent and modulated by the PPSO. In particular, Andr induced greater responses related to co-presence. The gender of the participants was related to the co-presence desire, where women imagined higher medium co-presence than men. EEG findings seemed to be more responsive to the PPSO–gender voice interaction, than behavioral results. The mismatch between female PPSO and male voice elicited the greatest cortical flow of information. In the case of the Andr–male voice condition, the trained model appeared to assign more relevance to the flow of information to the right frontotemporal regions (involved in odor recognition memory and social behavior). The Estr–male voice condition showed activation of the bilateral frontoparietal network, which is linked to cognitive control, cognitive flexibility, and auditory consciousness. The model appears to distinguish the dissonance condition linked to Andr matched with a female voice: it highlights a flow of information to the right occipital lobe and to the frontal pole. The PPSO could influence the co-presence judgements and EEG response. The results seem suggest that could be an implicit pattern linked to PPSO-related gender differences and gender voice

Toward an Imagined Speech-Based Brain Computer Interface Using EEG Signals

Individuals with physical disabilities face difficulties in communication. A number of neuromuscular impairments could limit people from using available communication aids, because such aids require some degree of muscle movement. This makes brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) a potentially promising alternative communication technology for these people. Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals are commonly used in BCI systems to capture non-invasively the neural representations of intended, internal and imagined activities that are not physically or verbally evident. Examples include motor and speech imagery activities. Since 2006, researchers have become increasingly interested in classifying different types of imagined speech from EEG signals. However, the field still has a limited understanding of several issues, including experiment design, stimulus type, training, calibration and the examined features. The main aim of the research in this thesis is to advance automatic recognition of imagined speech using EEG signals by addressing a variety of issues that have not been solved in previous studies. These include (1)improving the discrimination between imagined speech versus non-speech tasks, (2) examining temporal parameters to optimise the recognition of imagined words and (3) providing a new feature extraction framework for improving EEG-based imagined speech recognition by considering temporal information after reducing within-session temporal non-stationarities. For the discrimination of speech versus non-speech, EEG data was collected during the imagination of randomly presented and semantically varying words. The non-speech tasks involved attention to visual stimuli and resting. Time-domain and spatio-spectral features were examined in different time intervals. Above-chance-level classification accuracies were achieved for each word and for groups of words compared to the non-speech tasks. To classify imagined words, EEG data related to the imagination of five words was collected. In addition to words classification, the impacts of experimental parameters on classification accuracy were examined. The optimization of these parameters is important to improve the rate and speed of recognizing unspoken speech in on-line applications. These parameters included using different training sizes, classification algorithms, feature extraction in different time intervals and the use of imagination time length as classification feature. Our extensive results showed that Random Forest classifier with features extracted using Discrete Wavelet Transform from 4 seconds fixed time frame EEG yielded that highest average classification of 87.93% in classification of five imagined words. To minimise within class temporal variations, a novel feature extraction framework based on dynamic time warping (DTW) was developed. Using linear discriminant analysis as the classifier, the proposed framework yielded an average 72.02% accuracy in the classification of imagined speech versus silence and 52.5% accuracy in the classification of five words. These results significantly outperformed a baseline configuration of state-of-the art time-domain features

Pre- and post-prandial human scalp-EEG response to olfactory stimulation, using the brain electrical activity mapping technique

Recent psychophysiological evidence indicates that Central Nervous System activity may be directly affected by olfactory stimulation. The present thesis sought to examine the relationship between the CNS and olfactory perception in a series of three EEG experiments employing food odours as stimuli. Further aims were to explore the effect of food ingestion on psychophysiological behaviour and on the hedonic rating of odours, and to investigate the relationship between odour's affective valence and EEG asymmetry. The areas relating to olfactory psychology are reviewed in detail. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of the ingestion of a lunchtime meal and ambient food odour on the auditory oddball evoked potential. Marked P2(K) amplitude changes were associated with exposure to odour. In most cases, decreases in amplitude were obtained depending on the nature of the stimulus. Effects of meal ingestion were also found for P2(X) with the lunch group showing greater amplitude during the second (post-prandial) session than the unfed control group. A three-way interaction was obtained with the controls showing a significant decrease in P2(X) amplitude during the presentation of the odour of vegetable in the second session in comparison to the lunch group. No effect of odour on P300 amplitude was found. Experiments 2 and 3 examined EEG response to a variety of different actual and synthetic food odorants. Both experiments showed alterations in the theta frequency (in experiment 2, exclusively so). The effect of meal ingestion was variable with controls showing greater alpha activity than the lunch group during the second session in one experiment, but the opposite effect in the other. No alpha-related EEG asymmetry for pleasant or unpleasant odours was found in experiment 2 although asymmetries were obtained for the theta frequency. In experiment 3, however, intra-hemispheric alpha asymmetry was obtained for the most pleasant odour. No effect of lunch was found for the postprandial psychometric rating of food odour suggesting that negative olfactory alliesthesia may not be as robust a phenomenon as gustatory alliesthesia. The hypothesis is put forward that the dominant EEG frequency for the processing of olfactory information is the theta frequency. It is suggested, however, that the effects found in this waveband may be related to the psychometric properties of the odour such as distractability and not due to the odour per se