Background

Many studies have shown some relationships between thermal perception (including thermal sensation and thermal comfort) and human physiological parameters, such as brain signals. However, further research is still needed on how these parameters can help recognize the state of a human’s personal thermal perception.

Objective

This study aims to investigate the potential of using fNIRS brain signals to evaluate and predict personal thermal perception and cognitive performance in a steady-state temperature.

Methods

The present study investigated changes in the fNIRS signal during ambient temperature manipulation. Thirty healthy young individuals were selected as the subjects, and they were exposed to two steady temperatures of 28.8 and 19 °C. After acclimatizing to either temperature, the oxy/deoxy-hemoglobin changes of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) were measured in both rest and cognitive task states using 16-channel fNIRS.

Results

Results showed that exposure to different temperatures was significantly associated with the brain signals recorded during the task state. Many significant correlations were discovered between fNIRS signals and thermal perception indices. Furthermore, subjects’ performance changes led to changes in the fNIRS signals. Logistic regression showed that fNIRS can determine whether a person is thermally comfortable or uncomfortable.

中文翻译：

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利用 fNIRS 脑信号识别个人热感觉和热舒适条件的可行性研究

背景

许多研究表明热感知（包括热感觉和热舒适度）与人体生理参数（例如大脑信号）之间的一些关系。然而，仍然需要进一步研究这些参数如何帮助识别人类个人热感知的状态。

客观的

本研究旨在探讨使用 fNIRS 大脑信号评估和预测稳态温度下个人热感知和认知表现的潜力。

方法

本研究调查了环境温度操纵期间 fNIRS 信号的变化。选择 30 名健康年轻人作为受试者，将他们暴露在 28.8 和 19 °C 两个恒定温度下。适应任一温度后，使用 16 通道 fNIRS 测量休息和认知任务状态下前额皮质 (PFC) 的氧合/脱氧血红蛋白变化。

结果

结果表明，暴露在不同温度下与任务状态下记录的大脑信号显着相关。在 fNIRS 信号和热感知指数之间发现了许多显着的相关性。此外，受试者表现的变化导致 fNIRS 信号的变化。逻辑回归表明，fNIRS 可以确定一个人是否热舒适或不舒服。