Surface EMG | Musician’s Cramp
Focal hand dystonia, also known as “musician’s cramp,” is a movement disorder that causes involuntary flexing in the fingers, or finger cramps, when playing a musical instrument. This disorder poses a huge problem for professional musicians and in some cases can even threaten their careers. Many methods have been attempted to try and alleviate the ailment, but the most effective training method has been the “slow-down exercise” (SDE). This exercise, based on the fact that symptoms disappear when playing at a slow tempo, involves selecting a short passage that triggers the cramps then slowing the tempo down to where the musician can play without involuntary finger flexing. The same passage is then repeated over and over, gradually increasing the speed over time. While this method has helped improve symptoms, it was unclear what aspects of motor skills improved through SDE training.
Michiko Yoshie, Naotaka Sakai, Tatsuyuki Ohtsuki and Kazutoshi Kudo investigated how SDE affected motor performance, muscular activity, and somatosensation in a dystonic pianist. The study entitled “Slow-Down Exercise Reverses Sensorimotor Reorganization in Focal Hand Dystonia: A Case Study of a Pianist” tested a musician over a 12 month period as she underwent SDE training for 30 minutes a day, playing a specific passage that evoked the finger cramps most substantially. During the motor task, the musician’s surface EMG was recorded using EMG amplifiers and a BIOPAC MP Data Acquisition System. Throughout the rehabilitation process the musician improved her speed of key strokes and actually helped recover her normal motor and somatosensory functions. The researchers even found evidence that showed the brain had the capacity to reverse sensorimotor reorganization that was induced by the focal hand dystonia. The findings objectively show that SDE training not only improves effected people’s key strokes but helps to completely recover from the neurological disorder.
ECG Analysis | Body Dissatisfaction in University Attending Women
Weight
and body shape issues are a major concern amongst today’s general population,
especially young women. The pressure from outside forces to conform to a certain
body type, whether it is from advertisements or even their own social media
pages, is ever present. This causes a lot of women to harbor a high level of
body dissatisfaction which then internalizes aforementioned body shape
pressures. Mirror exposure has been used recently as a therapeutic technique to
reduce body dissatisfaction. Little is known, however, about what actually makes
this technique effective.
A recent study entitled “Body Dissatisfaction and
Mirror Exposure: Evidence for a Dissociation between Self-Report and
Physiological Responses in Highly Body-Dissatisfied Women” sought to study the
cognitive, mental and psychophysiological responses in women with different
levels of body dissatisfaction. Forty-two women attending University of Jaen were chosen to participate in the
study. The subjects were separated in to two groups, based on self-reported
criteria, into either the high-body dissatisfaction (HBD) or low-body
dissatisfaction (LBD) group. The participants were then asked to stand in front
of a mirror and directed to look at certain parts of their body (while wearing
beige underwear) while a BIOPAC MP150 system with an ECG amplifier continuously
recorded their physiological signals throughout the experiment. The researchers
then used AcqKnowledge software’s ECG analysis functions to obtain quantification of heart rate (HR) values. As
hypothesized, HBD women experienced more negative cognitive and mental emotions
than did LBD women. Conversely though, HBD women were found to have a reduced
physiological reaction (HR) than did LBD. The researchers hypothesized that this
might be due to HBD women’s development of a passive coping mechanism. Rather
than reacting with heightened senses to an upsetting or fearful situation, HBD
women react passively out of a possible sense of helplessness. Researchers also
felt that this could possibly be caused by HBD women performing more
self-inspections in the mirror than LBD women, but that the other explanation
was more probably. Although more research needs to be done, this study suggests
the possibility that eating behavior problems could stem from passive coping
mechanisms associated with body issues.
ECG Analysis | Physiological Changes in Response to Reporting
Physiological
responses can offer researchers key insights into the mental state of their
participants. Whereas human subjects can lie or misreport their emotions on a
self-report questionnaire, their physiological signals show the actual
truth. A quick rise in the recording
indicates a change in the subject’s emotions whether it be fear, anger, or
shame. Most studies concerning emotion shifts rely on heart rate data stemming
from ECG analysis and recording to see a participant’s reactions to the experimenters’ tests.
It is widely agreed that this is the true information that the analysis of the
ECG signal proves or disproves the study’s hypothesis. What if by simply
reporting on the emotion the researcher in fact influences changes in the
physiological response? That is what researchers Karim Kassam and Wendy Berry
Mendes sought to find out. They hypothesized that the awareness and conscious
assessment required by an individual for self-reporting of emotion may
significantly alter emotional processes. The researchers gathered one hundred
and twelve paid participants to take a series of tests designed to either induce
anger or shame (any individuals’ with depression or anxiety were excluded from
the study). Human subjects were either put into the anger, shame, or control
group and split by whether they were required to report their emotions during
the exam or not.
Their physiological responses (heart rate, impedance
cardiography, cardiac output) were recorded using a BIOPAC MP150 Data Acquisition research system connected with
an ECG amplifier. The researchers found that in the anger group that
participant’s exhibited different physiological responses from those who were
not required to report. The shame condition however, seemed to show no
significant difference between the two groups (reporting and not reporting).
This study suggests that the act of reporting may have a substantial impact on
the body’s action to emotional situations. The data seems to point that
individuals who are provoked (anger) are likely to exhibit different
physiological responses when reporting. The knowledge that they will have to
explain their heightened emotions brings a rationale to an otherwise irrational
behavior. Shame on the other hand causes individuals to ruminate or
self-reflect, which would explain the little difference between the two
groups.
Wireless Physiology | Psychophysiological Measures of Emotion
Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity provides objective data for
assessing emotional reactions. Electrodermal Activity (EDA) is a popular SNS
measure. EDA is basically an index of the electrical activity of the skin; sweat
glands in the skin are filled with tiny amounts of sweat and sweat contains ions
that conduct current, which can be detected and recorded. Increases in EDA
reflect increases in sympathetic nervous SNS activity. EDA is also referred to
as skin conductance (SCR, SCL, etc.) or galvanic skin response
(GSR).
Significantly, EDA can provide time-stamped information for
moment-to-moment reaction measurement throughout a message/stimulus presentation
(such as an advertisement).Combining physiological data with self-reported data
helps provide a more complete, more accurate understanding of a participant’s
emotional reactions. Unobtrusive, wearable wireless physiology devices (such as BioNomadix
BN-PPGED from BIOPAC Systems, Inc.) can
provide continuous and precise measures of nervous system activity, such as EDA,
ECG, and RSP.
Read
a case study at “Hooked on a Feeling: Implicit Measurement of Emotion Improves Utility of Concept Testing.” Researchers conducted a message-testing study in which
they measured physiological
arousal (via EDA), emotional valence (via continuous rating dial data), and discrete
emotions (retrospectively reported emotional
reactions), among other measures. Researchers used a BIOPAC MP150 data
acquisition system and wireless EDA BioNomadix module to collect EDA while
participants viewed each ad, and a BIOPAC variable assessment transducer to
assess in-the-moment feelings of positivity or negativity. E-Prime was used to
allow for precise synchronization across stimuli presentation and data
collection.