Developing a wearable real-world neuroimaging system to study stress

Neuroimaging technology has previously confined research to the laboratory setting, an environment that limits the generalizability of results to the real world. With the recent advent of high-density, wireless EEG technology, the promise of truly naturalistic neuroimaging research is closer than ever. This project presents a multi-aspect wearable neuroimaging system designed for use in daily life and tailored for studying stress. This system addresses several obstacles to collecting highly informative real-world neuroimaging data. First, neurophysiological data collected in a natural setting produces a rich dataset that is difficult to interpret without extensive contextual information. Our system provides this information from both user input and continuously collected physiological and actigraphy data. Second, the approach must minimally interfere with the user's life in order to avoid altering natural behavior. Our fully wearable, light-weight design integrates multiple components to maximize user comfort, while burden on the user is minimized by the use of a typical Android-based cell phone for occasional, brief interaction and also as the sole integration center for the system. While this system is optimized for the study of stress, the advances of this approach could be applied to study other naturally occurring psychological phenomena.