EDA-BASED ESTIMATION OF VISUAL ATTENTION BY OBSERVATION OF EYE BLINK FREQUENCY

This paper describes the relationship between visual attention and eye blink frequency. In an experiment, we prompted the activation of a subject's visual attention and examined the influence of visual attention (as measured using electrodermal activity (EDA), which is meaningfully correlated with visual attention) on the subject's eye blink frequency. Experimental results show that engagement of visual attention decreased eye blink frequency and that when visual attention was not activated, eye blink frequency increased. Knowledge of this relationship provides a technique using EDA to objectively determining a subject's visual attention status

Predicting students' happiness from physiology, phone, mobility, and behavioral data

In order to model students' happiness, we apply machine learning methods to data collected from undergrad students monitored over the course of one month each. The data collected include physiological signals, location, smartphone logs, and survey responses to behavioral questions. Each day, participants reported their wellbeing on measures including stress, health, and happiness. Because of the relationship between happiness and depression, modeling happiness may help us to detect individuals who are at risk of depression and guide interventions to help them. We are also interested in how behavioral factors (such as sleep and social activity) affect happiness positively and negatively. A variety of machine learning and feature selection techniques are compared, including Gaussian Mixture Models and ensemble classification. We achieve 70% classification accuracy of self-reported happiness on held-out test data.MIT Media Lab ConsortiumRobert Wood Johnson Foundation (Wellbeing Initiative)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01GM105018)Samsung (Firm)Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canad

Predicting Subjective Sleep Quality Using Objective Measurements in Older Adults

Humans spend almost a third of their lives asleep. Sleep has a pivotal effect on job performance, memory, fatigue recovery, and both mental and physical health. Sleep quality (SQ) is a subjective experience and reported via patients’ self-reports. Predicting subjective SQ based on objective measurements can enhance diagnosis and treatment of SQ defects, especially in older adults who are subject to poor SQ. In this dissertation, we assessed enhancement of subjective SQ prediction using an easy-to-use E4 wearable device, machine learning techniques and identifying disease-specific risk factors of abnormal SQ in older adults. First, we designed a clinical decision support system to estimate SQ and feeling refreshed after sleep using data extracted from an E4 wearable device. Specifically, we processed four raw physiological signals of heart rate variability (HRV), electrodermal activity, body movement, and skin temperature using distinct signal processing methodologies. Following this, we extracted signal-specific features and selected a subset of the features using recursive feature elimination cross validation strategy to maximize the accuracy of SQ classifiers in predicting the SQ of older caregivers. Second, we investigated discovering more effective features in SQ prediction using HRV features which are not only effortlessly measurable but also can reflect sleep stage transitions and some sleep disorders. Evaluation of two interpretable machine learning methodologies and a convolutional neural network (CNN) methodology demonstrated the CNN outperforms by an accuracy of 0.6 in predicting light, medium, and deep SQ. This outcome verified the capability of using HRV features measurable by easy-to-use wearable devices, in predicting SQ. Finally, we scrutinized daytime sleepiness risk factors as a sign of abnormal SQ from four perspectives: sleep fragmented, sleep propensity, sleep resilience, and non-restorative sleep. The analysis demonstrates distinguishability of the main risk factors of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) between patients suffering from fragmented sleep (e.g. apnea) and sleep propensity. We identified the average area under oxygen desaturation curve corresponds to apnea/hypopnea event as a disease-specific risk factor of abnormal SQ. Our further daytime sleepiness prediction demonstrated the significant role of the founded disease-specific risk factor as well

Physiological-based Driver Monitoring Systems: A Scoping Review

A physiological-based driver monitoring system (DMS) has attracted research interest and has great potential for providing more accurate and reliable monitoring of the driver’s state during a driving experience. Many driving monitoring systems are driver behavior-based or vehicle-based. When these non-physiological based DMS are coupled with physiological-based data analysis from electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), electrocardiography (ECG), and electromyography (EMG), the physical and emotional state of the driver may also be assessed. Drivers’ wellness can also be monitored, and hence, traffic collisions can be avoided. This paper highlights work that has been published in the past five years related to physiological-based DMS. Specifically, we focused on the physiological indicators applied in DMS design and development. Work utilizing key physiological indicators related to driver identification, driver alertness, driver drowsiness, driver fatigue, and drunk driver is identified and described based on the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-Sc) Framework. The relationship between selected papers is visualized using keyword co-occurrence. Findings were presented using a narrative review approach based on classifications of DMS. Finally, the challenges of physiological-based DMS are highlighted in the conclusion. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-12-020 Full Text: PD

The Impact of Trait Anxiety on Slow-Wave Sleep Processes.

The sleep of high anxiety/worry and low anxiety/worry subjects was studied by means of nocturnal polysomnography. Fifteen high anxiety adult subjects were chosen to represent an analog Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) population, and were selected from among individuals scoring within the upper 20th percentile on the trait portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ). Fifteen low anxiety subjects were selected from among individuals scoring within the lower 50th percentile on those measures, and were matched with high anxiety subjects for age, sex, race, and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores. Analysis of polysomnography variables revealed that high anxiety subjects took longer to fall asleep, had a smaller percentage of deep (slow-wave) sleep, and a larger percentage of light transitional sleep (stage 1 NREM). High anxiety subjects also had more stage 1 NREM periods, more micro-arousals during the first half of the sleep period, and a lower REM density relative to low anxiety subjects. In addition, high anxiety subjects had more electrodermal storming when SWS and REM sleep variables were co-varied. Results indicated that the pattern of disruption of sleep depth and continuity was very similar to that documented in clinical anxiety disorder patients, and was distinct from that typically shown in depressed patients. A major implication is that anxiety and worry are associated with disrupted sleep, independent of whether or not a diagnosed anxiety disorder is present. Current results indicate that these factors are associated with the sleep disruption observed in anxiety disorders, independent of the presence of panic, previous exposure to trauma, or a disease process per se

An Observational Study With the Janssen Autism Knowledge Engine (JAKE((R))) in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objective: The Janssen Autism Knowledge Engine (JAKE(R)) is a clinical research outcomes assessment system developed to more sensitively measure treatment outcomes and identify subpopulations in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we describe JAKE and present results from its digital phenotyping (My JAKE) and biosensor (JAKE Sense) components. Methods: An observational, non-interventional, prospective study of JAKE in children and adults with ASD was conducted at nine sites in the United States. Feedback on JAKE usability was obtained from caregivers. JAKE Sense included electroencephalography, eye tracking, electrocardiography, electrodermal activity, facial affect analysis, and actigraphy. Caregivers of individuals with ASD reported behaviors using My JAKE. Results from My JAKE and JAKE Sense were compared to traditional ASD symptom measures. Results: Individuals with ASD (N = 144) and a cohort of typically developing (TD) individuals (N = 41) participated in JAKE Sense. Most caregivers reported that overall use and utility of My JAKE was easy (69%, 74/108) or very easy (74%, 80/108). My JAKE could detect differences in ASD symptoms as measured by traditional methods. The majority of biosensors included in JAKE Sense captured sizable amounts of quality data (i.e., 93-100% of eye tracker, facial affect analysis, and electrocardiogram data was of good quality), demonstrated differences between TD and ASD individuals, and correlated with ASD symptom scales. No significant safety events were reported. Conclusions: My JAKE was viewed as easy or very easy to use by caregivers participating in research outside of a clinical study. My JAKE sensitively measured a broad range of ASD symptoms. JAKE Sense biosensors were well-tolerated. JAKE functioned well when used at clinical sites previously inexperienced with some of the technologies. Lessons from the study will optimize JAKE for use in clinical trials to assess ASD interventions. Additionally, because biosensors were able to detect features differentiating TD and ASD individuals, and also were correlated with standardized symptom scales, these measures could be explored as potential biomarkers for ASD and as endpoints in future clinical studies. Clinical Trial Registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02668991 identifier: NCT02668991

A Multi-Sensor Platform for Microcurrent Skin Stimulation during Slow Wave Sleep

Insu cient and low quality sleep is related to several health issues and social outcomes. Regular sleep study conducted in a sleep laboratory is impractical and expensive. As a result, miniature and non-invasive sleep monitoring devices provide an accessible sleep data. Though not as accurate as polysomnography, these devices provide useful data to the subject by tracking sleep patterns regularly. On the other hand, proactive improvement of sleep quality has been limited to pharmacological solutions and cranial electrotherapy stimulation. An alternative approach and a potential solution to sleep deprivation is a non-pharmacological technique which involves the application of micro-current electrical stimulation on the palm during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). This thesis presents the development of a miniature device for SWS detection and electrocutaneous stimulation. Several sensors are embedded in the prototype device to measure physiological data such as body movement, electrodermal activity, heart rate, and skin and ambient temperature. Furthermore, the prototype device provides local storage and wireless transfer for data acquisition. The quality of the sensor data during sleep are discussed in this thesis. For future work, the results of this thesis shall be the used as a baseline to develop a more re ned prototype for clinical trials in sleep laboratories