Abstract
(1) Background: Acute acoustic (sound) stimulus prompts a state of defensive motivation in which unconscious muscle responses are markedly enhanced in humans. The orbicularis oculi (OO) of the eye is an easily accessed muscle common for acoustic startle reaction/response/reflex (ASR) investigations and is the muscle of interest in this study. Although the ASR can provide insights about numerous clinical conditions, existing methodologies (Electromyogram, EMG) limit the usability of the method in real clinical conditions. (2) Objective: With EMG-free muscle recording in mind, our primary aim was to identify and investigate potential correlations in the responses of individual and cooperative OO muscles to various acoustic stimuli using a mobile and wire-free system. Our secondary aim was to investigate potential altered responses to high and also relatively low intensity acoustics at different frequencies in both sitting and standing positions through the use of biaural sound induction and video diagnostic techniques and software. (3) Methods: This study used a mobile-phone acoustic startle response monitoring system application to collect blink amplitude and velocity data on healthy males, aged 18–28 community cohorts during (n = 30) in both sitting and standing postures. The iPhone X application delivers specific sound parameters and detects blinking responses to acoustic stimulus (in millisecond resolution) to study the responses of the blinking reflex to acoustic sounds in standing and sitting positions by using multiple acoustic test sets of different frequencies and amplitudes introduced as acute sound stimuli (<0.5 s). The single acoustic battery of 15 pure-square wave sounds consisted of frequencies and amplitudes between 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 Hz scales using 65, 90, and 105 dB (e.g., 3000 Hz_90 dB). (4) Results: Results show that there was a synchronization of amplitude and velocity between both eyes to all acoustic startles. Significant differences (p = 0.01) in blinking reaction time between sitting vs. standing at the high intensity (105 dB) 500 Hz acoustic test set was discovered. Interestingly, a highly significant difference (p < 0.001) in response times between test sets 500 Hz_105 dB and 4000 Hz_105 dB was identified. (5) Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first mobile phone-based acoustic battery used to detect and report significant ASR responses to specific frequencies and amplitudes of sound stimulus with corresponding sitting and standing conditions. The results from this experiment indicate the potential significance of using the specific frequency, amplitude, and postural conditions (as never before identified) which can open new horizons for ASR to be used for diagnosis and monitoring in numerous clinical and remote or isolated conditions.
Highlights
Dysfunctional mental health affects nearly 300 million people globally with the World HealthOrganization defining mood and cognitive disorders as the largest contributors to human disability [1].The burden of diseases revolving around mental health conditions is difficult to quantify given the complexity of standards of care and recording capabilities from 2nd and 3rd world nations as well as individual reporting/withholding
The activity of the eyelid geometry from the sound-initiation onset or previous blink allowed us the ability to differentiate between open alert and blink response or closed (Figure 1)
We found significant details in the responses of cooperative orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles to various acoustic stimuli and identified altered responses to high and low intensity acoustics at different frequencies in both sitting and standing postures
Summary
Dysfunctional mental health affects nearly 300 million people globally with the World HealthOrganization defining mood and cognitive disorders as the largest contributors to human disability [1].The burden of diseases revolving around mental health conditions is difficult to quantify given the complexity of standards of care and recording capabilities from 2nd and 3rd world nations as well as individual reporting/withholding. Information from Europe and the United States describe global costs comprising medication, physician visits, as well as hospitalization and indirect costs such as mortality, disability, and production losses accumulate to ~1.7 trillion USD [2]. Aside from these strains, additional socio-economic impact falls on the effects generated from mental health fraud and abuse. Diagnosis of mood disorders where resources are constrained may solely rely on patient reporting and invite the feigning of symptoms [1] Because of these limitations, many leading authorities on psychiatric diagnosis such as Allen Francis, have cautioned health care professionals about the diagnostic in-/deflation in both marginally symptomatic or healthy individuals while using current self-reporting practices [3,7,8]
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