Exploring the connection between our two minds: the one in our head and the one in our body.
The mind-gut connection has flourished as a research area in the past few decades, elucidating the key role of the enteric nervous system (ENS or "gut-brain") in stress, affect, and memory. However, this connection has not been explored for wearable technology—applications and research for cognitive phenomena remain biased towards the cerebrum. In this project, we are non-invasively acquiring gastric myoelectric activity from the abdomen to evaluate the potential for a new area of wearable technology that can inform users on affective, stress, or memory states based on signals produced by the ENS.