Broulidakis M John, Kiprijanovska Ivana, Severs Liberty, Stankoski Simon, Gjoreski Martin, Mavridou Ifigeneia, Gjoreski Hristijan, Cox Sophia, Bradwell Daisy, Stone James M, Nduka Charles
Emteq Ltd., Brighton, United Kingdom.
Faculty of Informatics, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Aug 8;14:1232433. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1232433. eCollection 2023.
Continuous assessment of affective behaviors could improve the diagnosis, assessment and monitoring of chronic mental health and neurological conditions such as depression. However, there are no technologies well suited to this, limiting potential clinical applications.
To test if we could replicate previous evidence of hypo reactivity to emotional salient material using an entirely new sensing technique called optomyography which is well suited to remote monitoring.
Thirty-eight depressed and 37 controls (≥18, ≤40 years) who met a research diagnosis of depression and an age-matched non-depressed control group. Changes in facial muscle activity over the brow (corrugator supercilli) and cheek (zygomaticus major) were measured whilst volunteers watched videos varying in emotional salience.
Across all participants, videos rated as subjectively positive were associated with activation of muscles in the cheek relative to videos rated as neutral or negative. Videos rated as subjectively negative were associated with brow activation relative to videos judged as neutral or positive. Self-reported arousal was associated with a step increase in facial muscle activation across the brow and cheek. Group differences were significantly reduced activation in facial muscles during videos considered subjectively negative or rated as high arousal in depressed volunteers compared with controls.
We demonstrate for the first time that it is possible to detect facial expression hypo-reactivity in adults with depression in response to emotional content using glasses-based optomyography sensing. It is hoped these results may encourage the use of optomyography-based sensing to track facial expressions in the real-world, outside of a specialized testing environment.
持续评估情感行为有助于改善对慢性心理健康和神经疾病（如抑郁症）的诊断、评估和监测。然而，目前尚无非常适合此项工作的技术，这限制了其潜在的临床应用。
使用一种非常适合远程监测的全新传感技术——视光肌电图，来检验我们是否能够复制先前关于对情感突出材料反应低下的证据。
选取38名符合抑郁症研究诊断标准的抑郁症患者和37名对照者（年龄≥18岁，≤40岁），以及一个年龄匹配的非抑郁症对照组。在志愿者观看情感显著性不同的视频时，测量其眉部（皱眉肌）和脸颊（颧大肌）面部肌肉活动的变化。
在所有参与者中，与被评为中性或负面的视频相比，被主观评为正面的视频与脸颊肌肉的激活有关。与被判断为中性或正面的视频相比，被主观评为负面的视频与眉部激活有关。自我报告的唤醒状态与眉部和脸颊面部肌肉激活的逐步增加有关。与对照组相比，抑郁症志愿者在观看主观上被评为负面或高唤醒水平的视频时，面部肌肉的激活明显减少。
我们首次证明，使用基于眼镜的视光肌电图传感技术，可以检测出成年抑郁症患者对情感内容的面部表情反应低下。希望这些结果能够鼓励在现实世界而非专门的测试环境中使用基于视光肌电图的传感技术来跟踪面部表情。
