Measurement of Brain Activity during Lathe Operation Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

In the present paper, we describe the measurement of brain activation response during rotating a handle of a lathe and the measurement of brain activation response during lathe operation in a VR lathe environment and an actual lathe environment by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). In the handle rotating experiment, we did instruction trial and non-instructed trial. In case of the instruction trial, subjects rotated the handle according to our instruction. On the other hand, subjects rotated the handle without thinking in the non-instructed trial. In the case of the frontal lobes, the oxyHb did not change in the non-instruction trial. Meanwhile, in case of instruction trial, the oxyHb increase in the frontal lobes. The results mean that the frontal lobes were activated by the instruction. In the lathe operation experiment, the results show that the brain activation response in the VR lathe environment was very similar to that which occurs during lathe operation in the actual lathe environment.