Project lead: Determining sympathetic neural state from the mechanical beating profile of the heart

The inability to objectively quantify cognitive stress in real-time with wearable devices is a crucial unsolved problem with serious negative consequences for dementia and mental disability patients and those seeking to improve their quality of life.

In this project, I developed a skin-like, wireless sternal patch that captures changes in cardiac mechanics due to stress manifesting in the seismocardiogram (SCG) signal. Controlled studies, compared to gold standard cortisol and following the validated imaging test, show an R-squared correlation of 0.79 between the stress prediction and cortisol change, significantly improving over prior works. Likewise, the system demonstrates excellent robustness to external temperature and physical recovery status while showing excellent accuracy and wearability in full-day use.

Relevant Papers

Continuous real-time assessment of acute cognitive stress from cardiac mechanical signals captured by a skin-like patch

Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2024)

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