Life Science Hardware and Software

Very little is known about the origins of cardiovascular risk factors like obesity and altered glucose metabolism and their development during childhood. Adolescence is a time when individuals develop their own health behaviors while gaining increasing autonomy from their parents and this development has an effect on their cardiovascular health later in life. The RIGHT Track Health Study is a longitudinal study that followed participants from age two through young adulthood in an effort to understand how self-regulatory behavior throughout childhood alters the trajectory of various cardiovascular risk factors during late adolescence via health behaviors. For this study, individuals in the RIGHT Track program were re-contacted and invited to participate in adolescent data collection in an effort to gain insight into the origins of behavior that could contribute to an increase in cardiovascular risk factors later in life. This information could be valuable to helping researchers and public health policy administrators target intervention efforts in early childhood, when preventing chronic diseases is most cost-effective and behavior is more malleable.

The researchers used an orthostatic challenge to assess autonomic function, via changes in participant’s heart rate variability (HRV), to a mild physiological stressor. This physical stressor was used as a way of comparing the autonomic function to the physiological stressor paradigms that participants underwent during their early developmental years as part of the RIGHT Track program. HRV measurements provided complementary information regarding the role of autonomic nervous system as a regulator of cardiac control. ECG and respiration recorded using a BioNomadix wireless amplifier set with wearable transmitter to collect HRV at rest. Physiological signals were sent to a BIOPAC MP150 Research System with AcqKnowledge software for collecting and exporting the data in real time.

Data from the RIGHT Track Health Study will provide valuable information for youth healthcare about how health behaviors developed during an individual’s adolescence—such as diet, physical activity, sleep and substance abuse—can later affect cardiovascular health and potentially indicate critical times for reducing certain cardiovascular risk factors by assessing their trajectories.

Psychophysiological Monitoring of Fear Extinction

An estimated 10% of the general population experiences fear of flying (FOF) and 25% of the population that flies experiences distress during the flight. The most effective psychological technique for the treatment of phobias is in vivo exposure. Using planes in real flights, however, takes a large amount of time and money that is not easily accessible. Virtual Reality Exposure Treatment (VRET) of FOF is now well established but generalization of such treatment in clinical settings is still rare.
Researchers from INSERM Centre of Psychiatry and Neurosciences presented a case report of a 31-year-old woman who was chosen for treatment because of her FOF. She attended a demonstration of the new VR equipment and disclosed her FOF. Researcher’s proposed a VRET as she had to fly in a few months and anticipated high anxiety during the scheduled flight. The woman received six sessions of VRET, delivered with standard BIOPAC VR setup, using the included Virtual Environment (VE) of an aircraft with minor adaptations. The woman was seated in an aircraft chair that vibrated during takeoff and turbulences. Researchers used a standard BIOPAC VR Ultimate system, a high-resolution stereoscopic head-mounted display providing a monocular field of view of 60°, a tracking device in order to adapt the field of view to head movements, connected to a MP150 physiological responses amplifier. Skin Conductance Level and Heart Rate were recorded with BIOPAC’s BioNomadix wireless transmitter-receiver modules connected to electrodes. Results showed evidence of a progressive reduction of the subject’s anxiety in the reactivity to takeoffs and turbulences. A Flight Anxiety Situations questionnaire showed a reduction of anticipation anxiety. The woman succeeded in flying alone three months after completion of VRET. Physiological monitoring may provide indexes predictive of outcome; further research is required. Full immersion rather than the graphical quality of VE is the main driver of the sense of reality experiences by the subject.

A flow state typically occurs when a person’s abilities match the level of difficulty for the current task they are completing. During this state, researchers have found that most people who exhibit flow experience changes in blood pressure, muscle activation, and mental focus, among other responses. They also lose self-awareness and subjectively evaluate time as passing more quickly than usual. All of these factors relate to both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, suggesting that flow may involve a non-reciprocal coactivation of both systems. Neuroscience and Psychology researchers in Stockholm, Sweden hypothesize that these effects suggest a potential physiological component that differentiates flow from other states of increased mental effort. This indication may provide accurate measurement of deep concentration in a flow state during various activities, including, but not limited to, music, video games, and writing. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had a total of 77 participants play a modified version of the video game Tetris and then complete a questionnaire about their experience. Participants were instructed to play three game difficulties: Easy, Optimal, and Difficult. In the Optimal setting, researchers adjusted the speed of the game to match the participants’ ability, based on initial performance. Speed was then decreased and increased by three stages for Easy and Difficult modes, respectively. Wireless ECG and Respiration data was recorded using the wearable BioNomadix amplifier (BN-RSPEC); surface electrodes were placed on the left and right chest. In addition, mental activity was measured in 35 participants—this was determined by frontal lobe oxygenation, which was recorded by placing the BIOPAC fNIR100 optical brain imaging sensor on the forehead of each participant. After completing all three video game difficulties, subjects were given a questionnaire to indicate their subjective experience with each game level. The results found that while larger respiratory depth was associated with deeper flow, there was no significant correlation between frontal cortex activity and flow.

Muscle mechanical energy expenditure shows the neuromotor strategies used by the nervous system to analyze human locomotion tasks and is directly related to its efficiency. Kaur, Shilpi, Bhatia, and Joshi investigated the impact of gender on the activity of agonist-antagonist muscles during maximum knee and ankle contraction in males and females. Twenty right leg dominant male and female adult volunteers were recruited in the study. Limb dominance was determined according to which leg the individual chooses and relies on to carry out the activities. Movements of knee and ankle used for the maximum contractions were knee flexion and extension, and ankle plantar flexion and dorsiflexion. EMG Signals were recorded wirelessly from the selected ipsilateral and contralateral muscles of both the dominant and non-dominant lower limbs of all subjects. Recordings used BIOPAC multi-channel Wireless EMG and the collected data was stored using AcqKnowledge software included with the data recording system. Results showed that there is no significant influence of gender on agonist-antagonist muscle energy expenditure during maximum knee contraction. For ankle contractions, gender has significant influence on energy expenditure during maximum ankle dorsiflexion. Researchers found that these results are helpful in understanding gender related differences in the energy expenditure of selected muscles during maximum knee and ankle contractions. The wireless BioNomadix modules used by the researchers permitted free movement for the knee and ankle movements required of the study. The Dynamometry-EMG BioNomadix Pair has matched transmitter and receiver module specifically designed to measure one or both signals. These units interface with the MP150 and data acquisition and AcqKnowledge software, allowing advanced analysis for multiple applications and supporting acquisition of a broad range of signals and measurements. Both channels have extremely high-resolution EMG and Dynamometry waveforms at the receiver’s output. The pair emulates a “wired” connection from the computer to subject, in terms of quality, but with all the benefits of a fully-wireless recording system.