
doi: 10.5772/51156
We currently live in an environment that has become more and more stressful. Escaping from the stress in society through various activities (e.g., acupuncture, massage, listening to classic music or natural sounds, etc.) is important for our mental health. We previously re‐ ported that optimal facial vibrotactile stimulation (i.e., 89 Hz frequency and 1.9 μm ampli‐ tude [89 Hz-S]) might activate the parasympathetic nervous system (Hiraba et al. 2008, 2011). Specifically, we showed that 89 Hz-S stimulation of the face led to increased saliva‐ tion and a feeling of mental well-being through parasympathetic activity based on function‐ al near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) oxyhaemoglobin (oxyHb) activity. Namely, brain blood flow (BBF) oxyHb in the frontal cortex was near zero (Hiraba et al. 2011). We investi‐ gated adaptation to the continuous use of vibrotactile stimuli for 4 or 5 days in the same subjects to determine whether this resulted in decreased salivation (Despopoulos and Silber‐ nagel, 2003; Principles of Neural Science, 2000a). Then, we compared resting and stimulated salivation and investigated the most effective frequency for increasing salivary secretion. In‐ creased salivation in normal subjects was defined as a difference between resting and stimu‐ lated salivation (Hiraba et al. 2011).
| citations This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 3 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
