Relaxation Degree Analysis Using Frontal Electroencephalogram Under Virtual Reality Relaxation Scenes

Abstract

Increasing social pressure enhances the psychological burden on individuals, and the severity of depression can no longer be ignored. The characteristics of high immersion and interactivity enhance virtual reality (VR) application in psychological therapy. Many studies have verified the effectiveness of VR relaxation therapy, although a few have performed a quantitative study on relaxation state (R-state). To confirm the effectiveness of VR relaxation and quantitatively assess relaxation, this study confirmed the effectiveness of the VR sightseeing relaxation scenes using subjective emotion scale and objective electroencephalogram (EEG) data from college students. Moreover, some EEG features with significant consistent differences after they watched the VR scenes were detected including the energy ratio of the alpha wave, gamma wave, and differential asymmetry. An R-state regression model was then built using the model stacking method for optimization, of which random forest regression, AdaBoost, gradient boosting (GB), and light GB were adopted as the first level, while linear regression and support vector machine were applied at the second level. The leave-one-subject-out method for cross-validation was used to evaluate the results, where the mean accuracy of the framework achieved 81.46%. The significantly changed features and the R-state model with over 80% accuracy have laid a foundation for further research on relaxation interaction systems. Moreover, the VR relaxation therapy was applied to the clinical treatment of patients with depression and achieved preliminary good results, which might provide a possible method for non-drug treatment of patients with depression.

Exposure to Green and Historic Urban Environments and Mental Well-Being: Results from EEG and Psychometric Outcome Measures

“…This increase in theta power may be reflecting a state of relaxed attentiveness, which has been shown in previous studies [ 53 ]. Furthermore, changes in EEG alpha and theta have reliably been found to be associated with relaxation and meditation [ 54 , 55 , 56 ], which may be concordant with our results. Overall, regarding our second research question, although significant changes were detected, reflecting the sensitivity of the measures within the methods employed, we have found that psychometric and physiological measures do not always align when assessing the well-being benefits of exposure to different urban environments.…”

Exposure to Green, Blue and Historic Environments and Mental Well-Being: A Comparison between Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Display and Flat Screen Exposure

“…EEG is an objective measure of brain activity and can be used to assess levels of physiological stress and relaxation [ 67 , 68 ], but has yet to be used to assess relaxation in VR environments [ 58 ] and was therefore continuously recorded during this experiment. Previous research has demonstrated the utility of EEG as a psychophysiological measure including changes in affect with increased left hemisphere activity reflecting more positive mood in some studies, though not all [ 69 , 70 ], and pleasant emotion with increased midline theta [ 71 ].…”

“…Increased stress is associated with increased beta but reduced alpha frequencies [ 72 ], and with green exposure reducing beta frequency including when associated with traffic [ 73 , 74 ]. EEG changes in alpha, beta and gamma frequencies have been linked to changes in relaxation [ 59 ] and EEG has been proposed as an ideal measure of relaxation ‘R-state’ by Zhang et al [ 58 ], with increases in relaxation reflecting restorative environments, such as increased alpha in response to passive viewing of rural images [ 73 ] and increased frontal and occipital alpha when viewing green rather than urban spaces [ 75 ]. Similarly, relaxed attentional states, as opposed to loss of attention and vigilance, have been associated with increased alpha and theta [ 61 ].…”

“…Several studies have measured physiological and psychological well-being [ 52 , 53 ]. EEG measurement provides an objective measure of brain cortical activity and has been proposed as an ideal measure of relaxation [ 58 ]. EEG changes have reflected improved subjective mood states when viewing green environments [ 59 , 60 ], though results may vary and change with presentation method [ 61 , 62 ].…”

Microcurrent therapy as the nonpharmacological new protocol against Alzheimer’s disease

“…To further investigate the neuroinflammation after MC treatment, we first used Western blotting to determine the protein levels of astrogliosis marker glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and microgliosis marker ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 (IBA1) ( Amalia, 2021 ; Muzio et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ). Increased GFAP expression, indicative of heightened astrocyte activation, was evident in i.c.v.-injected Aβ treated AD mice when compared to WT mice.…”