Evaluation of brain activity associated with stress task in healthy people under fatigue state

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate whether fatigue state affect brain activities in healthy people or not. Fifteen healthy subjects were divided into fatigue and normal groups according to the profile of mood states (POMS) fatigue sub-scale. EEG was measured under speech task as acute stress stimulus and analyzed with a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to obtain power spectra density in the theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for each frequency band on the between-subjects factor "group" and within-subject factors "epoch" and "cluster". The results showed that the brain activity in the alpha frequency band of the fatigue group was significantly lower in pre-stimulus state and 120-180 second after speech task than those of the normal group. These results suggest that fatigue state may affect the performance of sustained brain information processing in healthy people.