Physiological monitoring of human cognitive processes

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach of the noninvasive biomedical monitoring of selected psychosomatic processes. The proposed method measures human skin conductivities (psycho-galvanic reflex - PGR) using the interdigitated array (IDA) of microelectrodes as well as skin temperature, which will allow continuous monitoring and analysis of complicated physiological, pathophysiological, and therapeutic processes. The psychological test was focused on short-time stress situation with a large scale of tasks, which had the probands to do during the test. The tasks were chosen in the way to charge the same part of human brain in order to amplify the stress situation. The future work will include mainly design and development of a fully portable miniature version of the measurement system. Consequently, the research will be followed by integration of the whole monitoring system into a single chip, working under low-voltage and low-power conditions that would meet basic requirements of mobility [1]. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.