Exploring the impact of 3D movie watching on the brain source activities and energy consumption by ESI and fNIRS

Abstract

To explore the impact of three-dimensional (3D) movie watching on brain function, we proposed a novel approach based on electroencephalogram (EEG) source imaging (ESI) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Using this novel method, we investigated the regions of the human brain that are activated and the energy consumption in the prefrontal regions after watching 3D movies from the perspective of the electrical activity of neurons, the brain source activities, the brain energy consumption, and local oxygen supply to the brain. ESI results showed that prefrontal and occipital lobes were strongly activated (p < 0.05) after 3D movie watching and the fNIRS results showed that oxyhemoglobin (HbO) concentration increased significantly on 40 channels underlying the prefrontal region (p < 0.05) after 3D movie watching. This activation was identified by the difference of brain signals at rest before (R3Db) and after (R3Da) 3D movie watching, using support vector machine (SVM), it showed that the average accuracy of classification of R3Db and R3Da achieved up to 95.3%, validating the accurate locating of the activated brain regions of our results. The prefrontal and occipital lobes were strongly activated and the energy consumption in prefrontal regions increased significantly after 3D movie watching. The occipital lobe is important for visual processing and the prefrontal can regulate emotions, behavior, and perception. Therefore, 3D movie watching may affect the visual processing, cognitive functions, and emotions of the brain. This study may help to better understand the effects of 3D movie watching on brain function.