Stress Monitoring Using Low-Cost Electroencephalogram Devices: A Systematic Literature Review

TL;DR

This systematic review examines the use of low-cost EEG devices for stress monitoring, highlighting their growing application, the effectiveness of machine learning methods, and the need for standardization in signal processing.

Contribution

The paper synthesizes existing research on EEG-based stress detection using low-cost devices, emphasizing current methods, datasets, and challenges such as small sample sizes.

Findings

High predictive accuracy reported in studies using low-cost EEG devices.

60% of studies analyzed had small sample sizes, indicating low-powered research.

Standardization of EEG signal processing remains an open challenge.

Abstract

Introduction. Low-cost health monitoring devices are increasingly being used for mental health related studies including stress. While cortisol response magnitude remains the gold standard indicator for stress assessment, a growing number of studies have started to use low-cost EEG devices as primary recorders of biomarker data. Methods. This study reviews published works contributing and/or using EEG devices for detecting stress and their associated machine learning methods. The reviewed works are selected to answer three general research questions and are then synthesized into four categories of stress assessment using EEG, low-cost EEG devices, available datasets for EEG-based stress measurement, and machine learning techniques for EEG-based stress measurement. Results. A number of studies were identified where low-cost EEG devices were utilized to record brain function during phases of stress and relaxation. These studies generally reported a high predictive accuracy rate, verified using a number of different machine learning validation methods and statistical approaches. Of these studies, 60% can be considered low-powered studies based on the small number of test subjects used during experimentation. Conclusion. Low-cost consumer grade wearable devices including EEG and wrist-based monitors are increasingly being used in stress-related studies. Standardization of EEG signal processing and importance of sensor location still requires further study, and research in this area will continue to provide improvements as more studies become available.