Stress Induction Laboratory
Service Description
Overview
This service offers a comprehensive, fully equipped laboratory environment for reliably inducing and measuring acute psychosocial stress. By utilizing standardized protocols, we capture a wide array of human responses through a multimodal approach. Our capabilities include full-body motion capture, high-resolution posturography, and video-based facial and behavioral analysis to extract accurate digital biomarkers. Furthermore, we provide continuous physiological monitoring alongside the systematic collection of biological specimens for biopsychological marker analysis. This integrated service allows startups and SMEs to thoroughly evaluate stress-related interventions, health-tech wearables, or AI-driven behavioral models in a highly controlled, standardized, and scientific setting.
How can the service help you?
For companies developing health-tech wearables, digital therapeutics, or AI algorithms aimed at stress monitoring, gathering high-quality, ground-truth data is a significant hurdle. This service solves that problem by providing a validated, end-to-end pipeline for stress induction and measurement. By utilizing our laboratory, you receive biological, physiological, and biomechanical datasets. This enables you to accurately train predictive models—such as those that detect behavioral indicators of stress—validate the accuracy of hardware sensors, and confidently demonstrate the clinical efficacy of your technologies.
How will the service be delivered?
The service is delivered physically at our specialized Stress Induction Laboratory facilities. Execution time varies depending on the cohort size and the specific combination of measurement modalities requested, but a standard stress-induction protocol requires a dedicated session per participant. Our team coordinates the entire technical setup of all recording equipment (including cameras, microphones, and biometric sensors) and manages the collection of biological specimens. Customers receive the processed, synchronized, and annotated datasets securely after the experimental phase is concluded.
Provider description
Operating from the Department of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, we are a service provider node within the TEF-Health consortium. The research group specializes in machine learning, biomedical signal processing, and multimodal sensor synchronization. Our team provides testing infrastructure and scientific support for evaluating medical devices, wearables, and contactless sensing systems.
Technical details
The core of the service relies on two standardized rooms tailored for stress testing, ensuring the gold standard for inducing acute psychosocial stress. The list of equipment is as follows:
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Behavioral & Motion Tracking: We utilize 2 RGB cameras for multi-angle facial expression and body movement analysis, complemented by a wireless microphone for audio feature extraction. Precise biomechanical profiling is achieved using an XSens inertial sensor-based motion capture system alongside a Zebris FDM 1.5 posturography system for pressure distribution.
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Physiological & Biological Measurement: Continuous physiological monitoring is conducted using a Biopac MP160 system (tracking ECG, ICG, and respiration) and a Calera body core temperature sensor.
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Specimen Collection: The laboratory facilitates the standardized collection and storage of saliva samples and dried blood spots, processed in strict accordance with Bio S2 laboratory standards.
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Software Integration: Post-processing and data alignment utilize specialized, industry-standard software including Biopac AcqKnowledge, XSens MVN Analyze, and Zebris Analysis Software.
Service customization
The service is highly modular and can be customized to match your specific research or product development goals. While we can provide the foundational stress-induction framework, the measurement modalities are entirely flexible. An SME can opt for a purely non-invasive digital biomarker approach (e.g., utilizing only the RGB cameras and IMU sensors for behavioral tracking) or incorporate the full suite of physiological and biological sampling. We can also adjust camera placements, video resolutions, and labeling criteria to align with specific AI model training requirements.
Provider & Contact
Operational Details
- - Gold standard for acute psychosocial stress induction (Kirschbaum et al., 1993)
- - Standardized collection of biological specimens for later processing in laboratory according to Bio S2 standard