Neural Function Desynchronisation in Left and Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortices During Virtual Reality Earthquake Video Viewing.

During natural disasters such as earthquakes, individuals are required to evacuate calmly amidst significant emotional distress, presenting a considerable challenge. Very few studies have measured emotional responses during disasters, and the emotional responses and brain activity during natural disasters are poorly understood. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate emotional responses during an earthquake using immersive virtual reality (VR), focusing on changes in neural connectivity in the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFCs). We measured changes in total haemoglobin concentration (Δtotal-Hb) using 2-channel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) while 24 healthy young adults viewed earthquake and neutral videos through a head-mounted display (HMD). Spearman's correlation analysis was applied to the time variation in Δtotal-Hb in the left and right DLPFCs, independently for seismic or neutral video conditions. The findings revealed a negative correlation between the left and right total haemoglobin concentration changes during the earthquake video (ρ = -0.53). Conversely, individuals exposed to the neutral video exhibited a positive correlation (ρ = 0.75). The present steady-state analysis suggests that emotional changes induced by virtual earthquake videos disturbed steady-state neural synchronisation between the left and right DLPFCs.