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The number of computer game users is increasing as computers and various IT devices in connection with the Internet are commonplace in all ages. In this research, in order to find the relevance of behavioral activity and its associated biosignal, biosignal changes before and after as well as during computer games were measured and analyzed for 31 s...
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Citations
... However, no effects on SDNN were evident. In a study assessing a game of LoL, Yeo et al. (34), reported a significant increase in low-frequency power, a significant decrease in high-frequency power, and an increase in the ratio between low-and high-frequency components of HRV, indicating a shift towards sympathetic dominance and reduced parasympathetic activity during gameplay. These results align with Chaput et al. (39), who also observed an increase in the Data expressed as the mean ± standard deviations. ...
Introduction: Gaming is often labeled as sedentary behavior. However,competitive gaming, also known as esports, involves significant cognitivedemands and may induce stress. This study aims to investigate whether thepsychophysical demands during esports elicit a physiological stress response.
Methods: Fourteen FIFA 21 and thirteen League of Legends players (23.3 ± 2.8years) were recruited for the study. Heart rate (HR), root mean square ofsuccessive differences between normal heartbeats (RMSSD), peripheraland central blood pressure (BP), pulse wave velocity (PWV), and energyexpenditure (EE) were assessed during supine rest, seated rest, andcompetitive FIFA or League of Legends matches.
Results: No significant group × condition interactions were observed for anyof the outcomes. However, there were significant increases in mean HR( p < 0.001, h2p = 0.383), RMSSD ( p = 0.019, h2p = 0.226), peripheral systolic BP( p < 0.001, h2p = 0.588), peripheral diastolic BP ( p = 0.005, h2p = 0.272), centralsystolic BP ( p = 0.005; h2p = 0.369), central diastolic BP ( p = 0.016, h2p = 0.313),PWV ( p = 0.004, h2p = 0.333), and EE ( p < 0.001, h2p = 0.721) during both gamescompared to the seated rest condition.
Conclusion: Despite the sedentary nature of esports, the psychophysicaldemands appear to elicit physiological responses. Interestingly, no significantdifferences were found between the different game genres.
... This involves extracting the time intervals between adjacent R peaks and using them to calculate various time-domain, frequency-domain, and nonlinear HRV metrics. 21 An alternative approach is to use photoplethysmography (PPG) on the¯ngertips and ear lobes, 22,23 or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) on the forehead, to measure pulse rate variability (PRV). 24,25 PRV is considered to be an approximation or substitute for HRV. ...
... 28 Fluctuations of the fNIRS signals recorded on the head not only re°ect ongoing neural activities but also include contributions from spontaneous physiological variability, such as heartbeat, respiration, and Mayer waves. 29 Although PPG/fNIRS measurements of heartbeat are known to be susceptible to errors introduced by lower-than-ECG sampling rates and spontaneous blood pressure/vascular tone°uctuations, 30,31 PRV metrics derived in young, healthy subjects under resting or relaxed conditions appear to correlate well with the corresponding HRV metrics derived from ECG. 23,32 Additionally, Hakimi et al. reported that during a Montreal imaging stress task, the heart rate (HR) changes measured with fNIRS had a high degree of agreement with those recorded by ECG. 33 In previous neuroimaging studies, the contributions of systematic physiological°uctuations to the raw fNIRS signals, such as those originated from heartbeat, are treated as nuisance noises, and usu-ally¯ltered or regressed out during data analysis. ...
... [36][37][38] Numerous previous studies have demonstrated that VGP is associated with functional recruitment of the prefrontal cortex, as well as perturbed ANS activities. 23,39,40 Moreover, most of the presumed health e®ects of VGP, whether bene¯cial or adverse, have been attributed to its acute and long-term e®ects on CNS and ANS functions. [41][42][43] In brief, we continuously recorded fNIRS data from the forehead of university students before, during, and after they played a round of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game. ...
Interactions between the central nervous system (CNS) and autonomic nervous system (ANS) play a crucial role in modulating perception, cognition, and emotion production. Previous studies on CNS–ANS interactions, or heart–brain coupling, have often used heart rate variability (HRV) metrics derived from electrocardiography (ECG) recordings as empirical measurements of sympathetic and parasympathetic activities. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a functional brain imaging modality that is increasingly used in brain and cognition studies. The fNIRS signals contain frequency bands representing both neural activity oscillations and heartbeat rhythms. Therefore, fNIRS data acquired in neuroimaging studies can potentially provide a single-modality approach to measure task-induced responses in the brain and ANS synchronously, allowing analysis of CNS–ANS interactions. In this proof-of-concept study, fNIRS was used to record hemodynamic changes from the foreheads of 20 university students as they each played a round of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game. From the fNIRS recordings, neural and heartbeat frequency bands were extracted to assess prefrontal activities and short-term pulse rate variability (PRV), an approximation for short-term HRV, respectively. Under the experimental conditions used, fNIRS-derived PRV metrics showed good correlations with ECG-derived HRV golden standards, in terms of absolute measurements and video game playing (VGP)-related changes. It was also observed that, similar to previous studies on physical activity and exercise, the PRV metrics closely related to parasympathetic activities recovered slower than the PRV indicators of sympathetic activities after VGP. It is concluded that it is feasible to use fNIRS to monitor concurrent brain and ANS activations during online VGP, facilitating the understanding of VGP-related heart–brain coupling.
... Sympathetic/parasympathetic tones and prevalence are represented by different HRV indices computed in the time, frequency and non-linear domains [29]. HRV measurements have been used in laboratory [30,31] and real-world tasks [32,33] to assess ANS activity perturbations associated with cognitive load [34], mental stress [35], emotional arousal [36], executive control [37] and reactivity to reward [38]. Moreover, it has been proposed that HRV can serve as an auxiliary diagnostic tool for certain mental diseases [30,39]. ...
Background
Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) display abnormal autonomic activities at rest and during gameplay. Here we examined whether and how in-game autonomic activity is modulated by human characteristics and behavioral performance of the player.
Methods
We measured heart rate variability (HRV) in 42 male university student habitual gamers (HGs) when they played a round of League of Legends game online. Short-term HRV indices measured in early, middle and late phases of the game were compared between the players at high risk of developing IGD and those at low risk, as assessed by revised Chen Internet addiction scale (CIAS-R). Multiple linear regression (MLR) was used to identify significant predictors of HRV measured over the whole gameplay period (WG), among CIAS-R, ranking score, hours of weekly playing and selected in-game performance parameters.
Results
The high risk players showed significantly higher low frequency power/high frequency power ratio (LF/HF) relative to the low risk players, regardless of game phase. MLR analysis revealed that LF/HF measured in WG was predicted by, and only by, CIAS-R. The HRV indicators of sympathetic activity were found to be predicted only by the number of Slain in WG (NSlain), and the indicators of parasympathetic activity were predicted by both CIAS-R and NSlain.
Conclusions
Taken together, the results demonstrated that risk of developing IGD is associated with dysregulated autonomic balance during gameplay, and in-game autonomic activities are modulated by complex interactions among personal attributes and in-game behavioral performance of the player, as well as situational factors embedded in game mechanics.
... Subsequently, mean task-related IHR was calculated. In addition, a taskrelated heart rate variability (HRV) measure was obtained by computing the standard deviation of all R-R intervals of heartbeats [45]. IHR and HRV values of each participant were averaged for each task (game-based and non-game-based task version of the fraction estimation condition, averaged across 12 item blocks each), respectively. ...
The use of game elements in learning tasks is thought to facilitate emotional and behavioral responses as well as learner engagement. So far, however, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms of game-based learning. In the current study, we added game elements to a number line estimation task assessing fraction understanding and compared brain activation patterns to a non-game-based task version. Forty-one participants performed both task versions in counterbalanced order while frontal brain activation patterns were assessed using near-infrared spectroscopy (within-subject, cross-sectional study design). Additionally, heart rate, subjective user experience, and task performance were recorded. Task performance, mood, flow experience, as well as heart rate did not differ between task versions. However, the game-based task-version was rated as more attractive, stimulating and novel compared to the non-game-based task version. Additionally, completing the game-based task version was associated with stronger activation in frontal brain areas generally involved in emotional and reward processing as well as attentional processes. These results provide new neurofunctional evidence substantiating that game elements in learning tasks seem to facilitate learning through emotional and cognitive engagement.
... Computer gaming is an important contributor to screen time (Mark & Janssen, 2008;Olds et al., 2006). Owing to the expanding internet and developing devices, the number of computer game players increases over time (Yeo et al., 2017). According to an unofficial statistic, the computer game population worldwide exceeded 1.7 billion in 2022 (Jovanovic, 2022). ...
Computer gaming may negatively impact mental health. To mitigate the inherent defects of the existing observational studies, we employed the Mendelian randomization (MR) design to examine the role of computer gaming on mental health issues using large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) data. A computer gaming and four mental health issue datasets were obtained from UK-Biobank and FinnGen respectively. We evaluated the causal effects using inverse variance weighted (IVW), weighted median, and MR-Egger estimators, followed by a series of sensitivity analyses. We found no distinctive results under a Bonferroni-corrected significance level (p < 0.013). Nevertheless, we observed suggestive evidence in IVW estimations supporting the causal effects of computer gaming on depression medications (OR = 0.579; 95%CI: 0.347–0.996; p = 0.036) and anxiety disorders (OR = 0.471; 95%CI: 0.246–0.903, p = 0.023). Our findings indicate a potential protective effect of computer gaming against mental health issues, which underscores the bright sides of computer gaming, and also offers insights into the health promotion strategies based on digital interventions. Given our limitations, we call for future research to re-examine our findings and explore underlying mechanisms.
... Few research studies have been carried out in recent years using different monitoring devices during games to analyze changes in the psychophysiological parameters of players (HR, HR variability, skin temperature, ventilation per minute, among others) [23]. Thus, the mean heart rate and ventilation per minute of LOL and Overwatch players have been shown to be higher during gameplay, compared to rest periods, in both amateur (78.56 ± 11.33 vs 82.35 ± 12.91 bpm) and competitive players (97.1 ± 19.9 vs 131.4 ± 19.0 bpm) [2,24,56]. Another study conducted on LOL and Overwatch found similar changes in both esports in systolic blood pressure and inhibitory processes, although a greater increase in peak heart rate was observed in Overwatch [46]. Similarly, in Fortnite, significant differences were found between mean HR at rest (70 ± 11 bpm) and during gameplay (76 ± 10 bpm) [52]. ...
... Despite the research conducted on HR and other psychophysiological parameters in LOL [2,24,30,56], no studies have been found that analyzed the HR of players during the plays that are part of a competitive game of LOL, nor the differences in individual and collective performance when winning or losing a game in this esports. Therefore, the objectives of the present investigation were a) to analyze the differences in the variables of performance and HR as a function of winning or losing; b) to establish the differences in the HR of the players depending on the role of the player, the involvement of the player in the play, and the team that benefited from each action during the game; and c) to determine the physiological changes that players undergo depending on the type of action performed. ...
The analysis of the most decisive factors in performance is fundamental in order to train on these aspects to maximize the chances of success in competition. However, in the field of esports, research that has analyzed performance is scarce and includes various modalities, making it difficult to draw conclusions for a specific esports. Due to the growing interest in League of Legends in recent years, this research focuses on this esports and has the following objectives: a) to analyze the differences in the variables of performance and heat rate (HR) as a function of winning or losing; b) to establish the differences in the HR of the players depending on the role of the player, the involvement of the player in the play, and the team that benefited from each action during the game; and c) to determine the physiological changes that players undergo depending on the type of action performed. Ninety games and 4638 plays of an elite League of Legends team composed of five male players were analyzed. The results showed that tower destruction and kills were the most decisive performance factors in the final result. Furthermore, although no differences in HR were found when comparing games won and lost, differences were observed depending on the player’s participation and the action performed, with actions that directly involved the player and favored the team showing the greatest differences in HR, more specifically the obtaining of neutral objectives (Baron Nashor and Elder Dragon), the destruction of structures closest to the nexus base and the team fights.
... The economics of Esports is growing and involves the insurance sector for injury compensation [9]. A performance model and the mechanisms of cardiovascular and stroke injuries in Esports have been poorly investigated because of difficulties in obtaining live physiological data during high-level tournaments, without interfering with the game [10]. In 2013, the American Psychological Association (APA) DSM-5 manual included "gaming disorders" in the section on "Conditions for Further Study" [11] and, later in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) added "gaming disorders" to the list of recognized addictive disorders. ...
... The term "stress" is broad, and in the psychological field, stress relates to disordered gaming (DG). DG has been defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as "excessive and harmful use of video games, both online and offline, leading to significant functional impairment and/or clinical (psychological) distress" [10]. In a sample of 5734 professional Esports players, psychological distress was reported by only 14.3% of PEGs, and therefore, overall, the players did not perceive themselves as stressed [5]. ...
... It is worth noting that these values were observed during a game session of short duration and in a student population of e-gamers; it must be considered that PEGs in a competition usually play continuously for up to 6 h at high intensities [42]. Other studies have shown an increase in the activity of the nervous sympathetic system (increase in the low frequency/high frequency ratio of HRV) during heavy gaming [10,44]. During gaming in professional players, a new instrument for the detection of EEG, HR, and HR variability has been used to measure cardiac function; the instrument was based on light photodetectors that were minimally invasive in vivo [10]. ...
The aim of this review is to examine the links among the different factors that determine harmful or even deadly events in professional and semiprofessional intensive Esports players. Cases of serious injuries or even death in young (<35 years old) male professional Esports players are reported every year. Fatalities and injuries in professional Esports players (PEGS) have only affected male players, and these events have mostly been concentrated in Asia. Studies in the literature have reported several causes and mechanisms of injuries. Links between injuries and previous comorbidities have emerged from the extant literature; obesity and/or metabolic disorders, seizures (associated with overstimulation of the eyes), heart malfunctions, high basal and abrupt increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP), prolonged stress, and poor posture have been associated with injuries. Several clinical signs have been identified and the question emerges whether or not self-regulation by Esports associations or public health authorities is necessary.
... Evidence suggests that electronic games significantly increase anxiety levels, [22] mental workload, [36] heart rate, [36][37][38][39][40] and overall sympathetic tone. [41,42] Physiologically stressful events also lead to heightened emotion and mental stress, J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f altering cell function. A decrease in ventricular action potential and the adrenergic stimulation during video games may trigger cardiac arrhythmias, especially in patients with inherited cardiac disorders. ...
The esports industry has grown exponentially and is expected to flourish rapidly in the coming years. Awareness about the cardiovascular sequalae in elite esport athletes has gained considerable momentum. Evidence supporting systematic screening in esport athletes is however lacking. In this narrative review, we discuss potential negative health effects on the cardiovascular system in esports enthusiasts. The pathophysiological mechanisms discussed in this narrative review may put esport athletes at an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Although large studies in esport athletes to substantiate these claims are inexistent, case reports or case-controlled studies have been included to support our hypotheses. Sleep deprivation, psychological stress, altered arterial stiffness, hypertension, and heart rate variability are some of these proposed mechanisms. The available data is unfortunately extrapolated from small cohorts. Nevertheless, the risk of sudden cardiac death is an important health concern which should be addressed appropriately. This review will raise awareness about the possible negative impact on the cardiovascular system in esport athletes.
... The HRV is closely associated with the autonomic nervous system and reflects the influences of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in the sinoatrial node. The RMSSD [10,11], and the HF indicates the degree of the parasympathetic activity, while the LF reflects the degree of sympathetic activity [12]. The power of HF is highly correlated to the RMSSD [13,14]. ...
... Yeo et al. [12] reported a study evaluating the psychological effects of games on users by analyzing biomedical signals. As a result of their analysis on pulse transit time, skin temperature and, heart rate variability, they showed that sympathetic nerve activities during computer games were more active than parasympathetic activity. ...
In this work, in order to determination of effect of a puzzle video game on HRV (Heart rate variability) signal, Poincare plot analysis is used. The linear and nonlinear dynamics of HRV were evaluated using HRV recordings obtained from each player at the time of play and rest. For this purpose, we have correlated the Poincaré plot descriptors with standard HRV measures derived from time- and frequency-domain methods. In addition, the correlations between the descriptors of the Poincaré plot along with the frequency and time domain measures of HRV have evaluated for the game stage. Statistically significant values were observed in eSport players in gaming and during resting. The obtained results show that play and rest can be separated by using the features obtained from the Poincare plot.
... Looking at non-competitive CG, the data representing the stress reaction are inconsistent, showing slight increases, unchanged values or decreases for heart rate and unchanged or decreasing values for blood pressure and cortisol (Ballard and Wiest, 1996;Ballard et al., 2006;Arriaga et al., 2008;Barlett et al., 2008Barlett et al., , 2009Adachi and Willoughby, 2011;Siervo et al., 2013Siervo et al., , 2018Yeo et al., 2017). Overall, the available data tend to show that there are no or only minor stress reactions in CG. ...
Introduction: Esports is practiced by millions of people worldwide every day. On a professional level, esports has been proven to have a high stress potential and is sometimes considered equivalent to traditional sporting activities. While traditional sports have health-promoting effects through muscle activity and increased energy expenditure, amateur esports could represent a purely sedentary activity, which would carry potentially harmful effects when practiced regularly. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the acute effects of esports on the cardiovascular system and energy expenditure in amateur esports players to show whether esports can be considered as physical strain or mental stress or whether amateur esports has to be seen as purely sedentary behavior.
Methods: Thirty male subjects participated in a 30-min gaming session, playing the soccer simulation game FIFA 20 or the tactical, first-person multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Respiratory and cardiovascular parameters, as well as energy expenditure, blood glucose, lactate, and cortisol, were determined pre-, during, and post-gaming.
Results: There were no significant changes in oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide output, energy expenditure, stroke volume, or lactate levels. Heart rate, blood glucose and cortisol decreased through the intervention until reaching their minimum levels 10 min post-gaming (Cortisol pre : 3.1 ± 2.9 ng/ml, Cortisol post : 2.2 ± 2.3 ng/ml, p < 0.01; HR min0.5 : 82 ± 11 bpm, HR post : 74 ± 13 bpm, p < 0.01).
Conclusion: A 30-min esports intervention does not positively affect energy expenditure or metabolism in amateur esports players. Therefore, it cannot provide the same health-promoting effects as traditional sports participation, but could in the long-term rather cause the same potentially health-damaging effects as purely sedentary behavior. However, it does not trigger a negative stress response in the players. Deliberate physical activity and exercise routines adapted to these demands should therefore be part of the daily life of amateur esports players.
