Monitoring Mental Fatigue in Analog Space Environment Using Optical Brain Imaging

Xuejun Jiao, Jing Bai, Shanguang Chen, Qijie Li

National Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Centre, Beijing, China.
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;National Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Centre, Beijing, China.

DOI: 10.4236/eng.2013.55B011                

Abstract

Accurate assessment of mental fatigue level would improve operational safety and efficacy of astronauts for long-term space flight. Identification of neurophysiological markers can index impending overload or fatigue before performance decrements using neuroimaging technologies. The current study utilized functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) to investigate the relationship of hemodynamic response in prefrontal cortex with changes of mental fatigue level, task performance (reaction time) during n-back working memory task and routine work task in analog space environment. Results indicated that the information entropy of hemodynamic response is related to task performance and subjective self-reported measures; the reaction time is predicted by regression analysis; and the accuracy of mental fatigue classification approaches 90%. Since fNIR is a portable, wearable and minimally intrusive methodology, it has the potential to be deployed in future space environments to monitoring mental fatigue and assessing the effort of operators in field environments.

Keywords

Mental Fatigue; Information Entropy; Modeling; fNIR

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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