Palm E-Tattoo can Detect Mental Distress

Highlights:

When the body is reacting to an emotion, like anxiety, sweat is released from the apocrine glands
The palms of the hands contain abundant sweat glands
Recent research //shows that a device placed on the palm called an ‘e-tattoo’ attached to a wearable device like a smartwatch can be used to monitor elevated levels of stress

Mental health scientist who wish to measure stress are now using innovative new ways to measure the sweat in our palms through ’e-tattoo’ that is attached to a wearable device like a smartwatch and this can be used to monitor elevated levels of stress ().

The existing sweat measurement technology is cumbersome, unreliable, and can contribute to social stigma by placing visible sensors on conspicuous body regions.

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‘A newly developed ‘electronic tattoo’ can detect when a person is experiencing elevated stress levels. The “tattoo” attaches to the user’s palm and connects to a smartwatch.’

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Palms as we are aware have the highest density of eccrine sweat glands, which are stimulated by mental stress. This explains why the palms get sweaty when someone is excited or nervous. This can measure emotional distress and help people suffering from mental health issues ().

Non-invasive Methods of Measuring Stress

For decades, electrodermal activity (EDA), a.k.a. galvanic skin response (GSR), has been widely used as a quantitative index of mental stress accessible through non-invasive means ().

Ultrathin, skin-soft wearable electronics called e-tattoos have demonstrated superior skin conformability, mechanical and even optical imperceptibility, and long-term stability for monitoring various physiological signals, such as electrophysiology, skin hydration, temperature, motion, and chemical biomarkers ().

“It’s so unobstructive that people sometimes forget they had them on, and it also reduces the social stigma of wearing these devices in such prominent places on the body”, researchers said.

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An experimental study uses new technology in wearables that detect sweat on the skin to infer stress signals. This initiative has great potential to reduce stress in daily life.

Graphene has been a favorite material because of how thin it is and how well it measures the electrical potential of the human body, leading to very accurate readings.

However, such ultra-thin materials can’t handle much, if any strain. So that makes applying them to parts of the body that include a lot of movement, such as the palm/wrist, challenging.

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The revolutionary thing is how the e-tattoo on the palm is able to successfully transfer data to a rigid circuit – in this case, a commercially available smart watch, in out-of-lab, ambulatory settings. They used a serpentine ribbon that has two layers of graphene and gold that partially overlap. By snaking the ribbon back and forth, it can handle the strain that comes with movements of the hand for everyday activities like holding the steering wheel while driving, opening doors, running etc.

Other researchers have tried similar methods using nanometer-thick straight-line ribbons to connect the tattoo to a reader, but they couldn’t handle the strain of constant movement.

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Researchers were inspired by virtual reality (VR), gaming, and the incoming metaverse for this research. VR is used in some cases to treat mental illness; however, the human-awareness capability of VR remains lacking in many ways.

References:

Innovations in Electrodermal Activity Data Collection and Signal Processing: A Systematic Review - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31952141/)
Graphene e-tattoos for unobstructive ambulatory electrodermal activity sensing on the palm enabled by heterogeneous serpentine ribbons - (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34406-2)
Advances in Electrodermal Activity Processing with Applications for Mental Health - (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310596734_Advances_in_Electrodermal_Activity_Processing_with_Applications_for_Mental_Health)
Multilayered electronic transfer tattoo that can enable the crease amplification effect - (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe3778)

Source-Medindia