Human Sensing - Emotion and Stress

Assessing emotion, stress and anxiety is challenging because individuals differ by personality characteristics, age, gender, culture, and country; all of which can modify how they verbally express or report mental and emotional well-being. To overcome the limitations of subjective self-reports, researchers have increasingly focused on methods that quantify the biological changes associated with the neuroendocrine stress response. Disruptions in homeostasis, i.e., stress, place demands on the body that are met by the activation of two systems and manifest as quantifiable physiological changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and pupillary reflex as well as differential expression of stress biomarkers such as cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulphate (DHEA-S) and adrenaline. Although attaining happiness and overcome stress are nearly universal goal, surprisingly little research has focused on how happiness can be increased and stress can be decreased. This review paper focuses on the current status and future prospects of diagnostic methodologies using saliva samples. Chemical salivary test has overwhelming advantages over blood test in that it is intrinsically safe and test samples can be self-collected any time. The direction of new applications for salivary sensors is discussed by introducing commercially available salivary tests for the detection of emotion and stress.