Jingxing Xie, Jiao Xu

(School of Biological Sciences and Medical Engineering, Southeast University)

Abstract：

Mental fatigue is a comprehensive psychological and physiological phenomenon that can have a negative impact on an individual's physical and mental health, seriously weaken their work efficiency, and may lead to major accidents. Therefore, research on the assessment of mental fatigue is particularly important. Heart rate variability (HRV), as an important means of assessing mental fatigue, has become a current research hotspot due to its wide range of acquisition channels and high signal-to-noise ratio. At present, research on using HRV for mental fatigue assessment is constantly emerging, but there is still a lack of systematic summary and analysis. Therefore, this article provides a review of the current research status of HRV based assessment of mental fatigue. Firstly, this article summarizes the HRV analysis methods for evaluating mental fatigue. HRV features can be obtained from electrocardiogram (ECG), photoplethysmography (PPG), and ballistocardiogram (BCG) signals. The technical principles and advantages and disadvantages of these three signals for evaluating mental fatigue are introduced in detail. Currently, the more mature method is to use ECG signals. Although BCG signals have been less studied in the field of mental fatigue assessment, their acquisition process can be unconstrained and have a wide range of application prospects; Secondly, a summary and comparison were made on the development of mental fatigue assessment devices based on electrocardiogram, photoplethysmographic pulse wave, and cardiac impulse diagram signals, which are divided into wearable devices and non wearable devices. The two have different application scenarios, and wearable devices are more mature than non wearable devices; Finally, this article proposes countermeasures for the existing difficulties in assessing mental fatigue, in order to provide reference for the improvement and innovation of subsequent mental fatigue assessment techniques, better monitor and evaluate mental fatigue, and improve personal mental health and work efficiency.

Key Words：

mental fatigue; heart rate variability; fatigue assessment; evaluation principle; evaluate equipment