About this Research Topic
With the advent of portable and wearable neuroimaging methods like electroencephalography (EEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and neurostimulation approaches like transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), significant progress has been made in recording and altering brain activity without restricting body movements and without limiting research to laboratory environments. Traditional approaches imposed limitations for experimental protocols, data collection settings and task conditions at the expense of ecological validity. Neuroergonomics integrates advancements of neuroscience and neuroengineering, to provide the flexibility to assess body and brain function in naturalistic work settings bringing neuroscience into everyday life.
Recent trends in neuroergonomics have established it as a tool to inform design, development and use of complex human machine/computer interfaces. These steps towards an understanding of the operator brain function can guide optimization and refinement of advanced systems specifically relevant in aerospace and medical field applications when failure of the system can be life-threatening. Moreover, deployment of portable neuroimaging technologies to real time settings could help assess cognitive and motivational states of personnel assigned to perform critical tasks as well as offer insights into a diverse range of day-to-day activities.
This Research Topic calls for submissions that cover recent approaches and emerging new directions in neuroergonomics and attempt to chart a path toward a better understanding of the neurophysiological measures and their relationship to complex tasks. Submissions can be any article type covering advanced neuroscience methods and techniques as well as neuroimaging analysis approaches to investigate brain dynamics in actively behaving participants in field settings. Application of these technologies to investigate cognition, emotion, perception, decision making, attention, working memory, cognitive workload, performance monitoring, human-machine-interaction, brain computer interface, mobile brain and body imaging, neuroadaptive technologies and related areas relevant to working environments are especially invited.
This Research Topic will include select submissions from the International Neuroergonomics conference series (www.neuroergonomicsconference.org) which is a biennial event, switching locations between Europe and USA with sequential iterations. Following the successful completion of the inaugural international Neuroergonomics (Paris, 2016), the 2nd edition (Philadelphia, 2018), aims to gather multidisciplinary research domains and scientific communities concerned with the understanding of human in complex real-life contexts.
Keywords: Applied Neuroscience, Human Machine Interaction, Neuroergonomics, Functional Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation, Brain Computer Interface
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.