Australian AI Institute, GrapheneX-UTS Human-centric AI Centre, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 17;19(4):e0301052. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301052. eCollection 2024.
Stress is a prevalent bodily response universally experienced and significantly affects a person's mental and cognitive state. The P300 response is a commonly observed brain behaviour that provides insight into a person's cognitive state. Previous works have documented the effects of stress on the P300 behaviour; however, only a few have explored the performance in a mobile and naturalistic experimental setup. Our study examined the effects of stress on the human brain's P300 behaviour through a height exposure experiment that incorporates complex visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive stimuli. A more complex sensory environment could produce translatable findings toward real-world behaviour and benefit emerging technologies such as brain-computer interfaces. Seventeen participants experienced our experiment that elicited the stress response through physical and virtual height exposure. We found two unique groups within our participants that exhibited contrasting behavioural performance and P300 target reaction response when exposed to stressors (from walking at heights). One group performed worse when exposed to heights and exhibited a significant decrease in parietal P300 peak amplitude and increased beta and gamma power. On the other hand, the group less affected by stress exhibited a change in their N170 peak amplitude and alpha/mu rhythm desynchronisation. The findings of our study suggest that a more individualised approach to assessing a person's behaviour performance under stress can aid in understanding P300 performance when experiencing stress.
压力是一种普遍存在的身体反应，普遍存在并显著影响一个人的精神和认知状态。P300 反应是一种常见的大脑行为，可以深入了解一个人的认知状态。先前的工作已经记录了压力对 P300 行为的影响；然而，只有少数研究探索了在移动和自然实验设置中的表现。我们的研究通过一项包含复杂视觉、前庭和本体感觉刺激的高度暴露实验，考察了压力对人类大脑 P300 行为的影响。更复杂的感觉环境可以产生可转化的真实世界行为发现，并有益于新兴技术，如脑机接口。十七名参与者经历了我们的实验，通过身体和虚拟高度暴露引起了应激反应。我们发现，我们的参与者中有两个独特的群体，当暴露于压力源（从高处行走）时，表现出相反的行为表现和 P300 目标反应。当暴露于高处时，一组表现更差，顶叶 P300 峰值幅度显著降低，β和γ功率增加。另一方面，受压力影响较小的组表现出 N170 峰值幅度的变化和α/μ 节律去同步。我们的研究结果表明，更个性化的方法来评估一个人在压力下的行为表现可以帮助理解在经历压力时 P300 的表现。
