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A method of identifying chronic stress by EEG

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Abstract

There are a lot of studies on chronic stress assessment applying psychology instruments or hormones analysis. However, there are only few studies using electroencephalogram (EEG), which is a non-invasive method providing objective inspection on brain functioning. In this paper, we analyzed overall complexity and spectrum power of certain EEG bands (theta, alpha and beta) collected from two groups of human subjects—high stress versus moderate stress at prefrontal sites (Fp1, Fp2 and Fpz). The results showed that the differences of nonlinear features (C0, LZC, D2, L1 and RE) and linear features (power and alpha asymmetry score) between two groups are significant. C0, LZC and D2 significantly increased in stress group at Fp1 and Fp2, while L1 and RE significantly decreased. And those with chronic stress have higher left prefrontal power. Finally, we suggest that it may be effective to discriminate the high-stress people from moderate-stress people by EEG.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2011CB711001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 60973138), the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme OPTIMI (grant No. 248544), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant No. lzujbky-2009-62), the Interdisciplinary Innovation Research Fund For Young Scholars of Lanzhou University (grant No. LZUJC200910).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Hong Peng, Bin Hu, Fang Zheng, Dangping Fan & Wen Zhao

  2. School of CTN, TEE, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Bin Hu

  3. Department of Mental Health, The First Affiliated Hospital of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Xuebin Chen

  4. The Special Education School, Lanzhou, China

    Yongxia Yang & Qingcui Cai

Authors
  1. Hong Peng
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  2. Bin Hu
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  3. Fang Zheng
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  4. Dangping Fan
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  5. Wen Zhao
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  6. Xuebin Chen
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  7. Yongxia Yang
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  8. Qingcui Cai
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Correspondence to Bin Hu.

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Peng, H., Hu, B., Zheng, F. et al. A method of identifying chronic stress by EEG. Pers Ubiquit Comput 17, 1341–1347 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0593-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0593-3

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