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Skin deep
The University of Newcastle
researchers using skin to
measure stress and resilience.
Eugene Nalivaiko interviewed by Loren Smith
H
uman skin is a multi-tasker.
Obviously it contains our internal
organs, but it also wards off
bacteria, moisture and the sun; regulates
temperature; produces hormones; stores
bodily substances; and indicates medical
conditions. Now, it can potentially
add another role to its arsenal: early
stress detection.
Led by the University of Newcastle
and Hunter Medical Research Institute,
14
researchers have found that resilience levels
in mentally healthy people can be detected
by merely monitoring their skin.
Using skin-conductance sensors attached
to the fingertips of 30 young participants,
the researchers tested the rates of ‘acoustic
startle’ in their subjects.
“When we hear a sudden, loud sound
– for example, a gunshot – we naturally
respond with instant sweat, a spike in heart
rate and disrupted breathing,” explains
lead author Associate Professor Eugene
Nalivaiko from the University of Newcastle.
The longer a person takes to habituate
to an acoustic startle, the lower their level
of resilience. Since acoustic startle can be
measured by sweat secretions, the skin may
signify a person’s rate of resilience.
Nalivaiko and his team say this test – which
differs from previous, mostly subjective
resilience tests that relied on self-reported
data – can already detect PTSD, anxiety and
depression before symptoms develop.
Published in open access journal PLOS
One, their findings will be of particular
use in defence and education contexts.
Measuring the resilience levels in soldiers
and students, they say, can help implement
preventive mental health measures.
To this end, researchers from Defence
Science and Technology and the Australian
Army were involved in the project, as was
a researcher from the University of Leuven
in Belgium.
Campus Review caught up with Nalivaiko
to find out more.
CR: Can you tell us about the background
to your research and how it came about?
EN: The study was initiated by our
interaction with Defence, and Defence
forces are particularly interested
in identifying and determining the
psychological readiness of their members
in terms of psychological resilience,
because they realise that they perform
incomparably much more training in
physical strength and weapons skills,
and very little in terms of training in stress
management skills.
To address this issue, it is necessary to
understand what the level of resilience
is. Resilience, basically, can be determined
as an ability to successfully bounce back