Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurements are influenced by various factors. Age-related psychological and physiological changes may be considered as one of the possible factors which may influence EDA measurements. In order to properly investigate the effects of such factors on EDA, techniques of precisely and simultaneously recording more than one EDA parameter are recommended. This study aims to explore the impact of age-related differences on EDA components through employing a new measuring technique, which is composed of a small front-end electronic box, DAQ card, and a laptop running LabVIEW software. It is dependent on the simultaneous recording of three EDA parameters: skin conductance (SC), skin potential (SP), and skin susceptance (SS) at the same skin site. EDA components as results of breathing, mathematical tasks, and image stimuli were recorded from 60 healthy participants simultaneously at the same skin site. They were categorized by age into young adults (ages 18–25), middle-aged adults (ages 30–40), and old adults (ages 50–70) years. It was found that skin potential responses (SPRs), and skin conductance level (SCL) ( p < 0.001), were significantly decreased due to aging, but changes in other EDA parameters were nonsignificant ( p > 0.05). Moreover, both tonic and phasic SS were the least affected and found to be more robust than SC and SP with respect to aging. The study suggests that it is important to take age into account in research studies where the mean aim of the study is to compare EDA parameters; however, in the meantime, the results from our small number and specific study population cannot be generalized to clinical applications.

中文翻译：

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同时测量与年龄相关的差异相关的皮肤电活动成分


皮肤电活动 (EDA) 测量受到多种因素的影响。与年龄相关的心理和生理变化可被认为是影响 EDA 测量的可能因素之一。为了正确研究这些因素对 EDA 的影响，建议使用精确且同时记录多个 EDA 参数的技术。本研究旨在通过采用一种新的测量技术来探讨与年龄相关的差异对 EDA 组件的影响，该技术由小型前端电子盒、DAQ 卡和运行 LabVIEW 软件的笔记本电脑组成。它依赖于同时记录三个 EDA 参数：同一皮肤部位的皮肤电导 (SC)、皮肤电位 (SP) 和皮肤电纳 (SS)。 60 名健康参与者在同一皮肤部位同时记录 EDA 成分，如呼吸、数学任务和图像刺激的结果。按年龄分为青壮年（18-25岁）、中年（30-40岁）和老年（50-70岁）。研究发现，皮肤电位反应 (SPR) 和皮肤电导水平 (SCL) ( p < 0.001) 由于衰老而显着下降，但其他 EDA 参数的变化不显着 ( p > 0.05)。此外，强直性和阶段性 SS 受到的影响最小，并且在老化方面比 SC 和 SP 更稳健。该研究表明，在研究中考虑年龄很重要，研究的平均目的是比较 EDA 参数；然而，与此同时，我们少数和特定研究人群的结果不能推广到临床应用。