An Overview of Stress Analysis Based on Physiological Signals: Systematic Review of Open Datasets and Current Trends
Abstract
This review uniquely integrates open access dataset taxonomy with methodological trends in stress analysis, outlining the experimental framework and highlighting key gaps in reproducibility and FAIR compliance. In this context, stress induction methods, ground truth labeling approaches, open access datasets, computational advances, and current challenges and limitations are reported. A systematic review over the last decade (2014-2024) identified thirty-two open access affective datasets eligible for stress-related research, encompassing multimodal physiological signals, including electroencephalography (EEG), electrocardiography (ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA), and respiration (Resp), as well as behavioral measures, such as motion, audiovisual, and eye tracking data. Recent developments in signal analysis methods (2023-2025) highlight the predominance of multimodal fusion, advances in deep and self-supervised learning, personalized/adaptive models, and the growing adoption of explainable Artificial Intelligence, while machine learning approaches continue to hold a fundamental role. Despite these advances, several limitations and challenges remain, including heterogeneous experimental designs, sensor variability, limited demographic representation, data synchronization and labeling, and class imbalance. An effective experimental framework for stress research should integrate individual demographics and traits, reliable stressors, and high-quality physiological recordings…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a systematic review, done in computer models (in silico), not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.