Wearable Device Used to Measure Brain during Conversations

Biomedical engineers and psychologists are using a brain-imaging headband to investigate how brains interact and synchronize when humans communicate with each other.

The functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (or fNIRS) device uses light to measure neural activity in the brain, and can be worn as a headband. According to the researchers this is only one of many applications for fNIRS systems.


The results of the study were published online in the February 27, 2017, issue of Scientific Reports, by researchers from Drexel University, and Princeton University.

The researchers previously used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study what mechanisms the human brain uses to help us produce and comprehend language. The researchers found that the brain activity of both a listener and the speaker are mirrored when the speaker relates a story about a real-life experience. The researchers also found that improved coupling was associated with improved understanding. However fMRI equipment is noisy and bulky, and cannot be used to image several individuals speaking face-to-face.

As an alternative the researchers explored the use of fNIRS for studying the prefrontal and parietal brain regions, including areas related to cognitive and higher-order understanding. Another goal of the researchers was to compare the fNIRS and fMRI methods.

Research team leader, Hasan Ayaz, PhD, associate research professor, Drexel School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, said, "Being able to look at how multiple brains interact is an emerging context in social neuroscience. We live in a social world where everybody is interacting. And we now have a tool that can give us richer information about the brain during everyday tasks – such as natural communication – that we could not receive in artificial lab settings or from single brain studies."