Workers’ Cerebrocortical Activity in Hot and Humid Condition: An Electroencephalogram Study

Abstract

Hyperthermal environments can harm workers’ health and safety. However, it is difficult to include effective protection into standards because heat-related impacts vary significantly according to individual workers and multiple factors. Studies suggested obvious relationship between environment condition and bio-electricity signal, including electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. We used a detector with 64 electrodes to perform dedicated EEG measurements of nine individual subjects to analyze human cerebral activity under hyperthermal (35℃, 80% RH) and standard conditions (25℃, 30% RH). Amplitude changes of the frequency wavebands were analyzed using statistical analysis. Seven participants showed increasing beta activity due to high temperature and high humidity in the primary somatosensory cortex (electrode C3) and the temporopolar region (electrode FT 8). The amplitude value of alpha wave is increased from 0.194 to 0.213 while the amplitude value of beta wave is increased from 0.144 to 0.160. Value is decreased due to hyperthermal environment for most people. The results of this study could be used to inform the development of wearable equipment to monitor the health of on-site workers, which is fundamental to improve worker safety and wellbeing.

Keywords

confined space / electroencephalogram (EEG) / hyperthermal environment / heat exposure / workers’ health