2020 17th International Computer Conference on Wavelet Active Media Technology and Information Processing (ICCWAMTIP) | 978-1-6654-0505-8/20/$31.

00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICCWAMTIP51612.2020.9317396

ROLE OF MACHINE LEARNING IN HUMAN STRESS: A REVIEW

FAIJAN AKHTAR1, MD BELAL BIN HEYAT1, JIAN PING LI1*, PARTH K. PATEL2, RISHIPAL3, BISHAL
GURAGAI3

1
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu,
Sichuan 611731, China
2
Department of Pharmacy, H.K. College of Pharmacy, Mumbai University, Jogeshwari, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400102,
India
3
School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054,
China
E-MAIL: jpli2222@uestc.edu.cn

Abstract: stressor. Therefore our perceptions towards any event or

Stress is one type of epidemic of current world. It generates
many diseases and is a big source of human suicide. The main
aim of this paper is to determine the work of this study
conducted on stress using emerging techniques such as machine
learning. This study created a comprehensive image for the
work of machine learning in stress management. This study
completed in some steps including data collection using closest
keywords on Web of Science (WoS) database, design network
visualization based on previous data, evaluation of selected
research article, and finally conclude the all results. We used 4
closest keywords, 5 research articles, 3 publishers, and 4
journals to analyze the work. The results showed that Support
Vector Machine (SVM) easily classify the signals. This study
mentioned the future direction for the upcoming research in
more scientific and significant manner.
Keywords:
Detection; Machine learning; Prediction; Stress; SVM;
Web of Science
1. Introduction
Stress is considered as a cancer of mind [1], it has been
health epidemic of twenty first century [2]. Stress is
considered to be one of the special characteristics of our life
and everybody experiences it in their life as it is an inevitable
aspect [3]. It is considered to be one amongst the foremost
aspects of our current life, which has occasioned from the
modernity and changes in human beings. Consequently, this
period is known as age of stress [4]. Any event or factor that
can cause actual or perceived threat to an organism and
contribute to stress is called as ‘stressor’[5-6]. Stressors can
be of several types: life events, physiological or physical
changes in body, environmental changes, and social
influence. Sometimes imaginary situations tend to act as a
situation play a major role in today’s stressful life.
Depending on the nature, influence of stress on individual
and duration of exposure, stress can be categorized into
various categories: Physiological stressors are also called as
homeostatic or systemic stressors. These aims several
physiological parameters, and their outcome is refereed
through receptors system, viscera sensory pathways and
directly affects stress-related motor neurons. It causes
damage to body tissue and is indicated by an emotional
experience. Psychological stressors are also known as
emotional or neurogenic stimuli. This type of stress is
encountered under situations arising due to social threats like
social exclusion, evaluation and achievements situation. If
the gratification of the needs like to maintain social-self, to
get affiliated by others is threatened; for example getting
negatively judged for a performance by others [7-8]. Acute
stress is common in people that worry excessively and lives
extremely busy and disorganized life. Generally the
symptoms are irritability, anxiety, anger. If acute stress
occurs frequently, it is termed as episodic stress. People face
episodic stress when they encounter series of stressful
challenges continuously one after the other. When stress
remains for a longer period of time, it is termed as chronic
stresses. Long term exposure to stressors can lead to chronic
stress. It can severely affect the physical, emotional and
psychological health. The effect of stress on body may vary
from person to person depending upon several factors like
age, sex, past experiences, physiological conditions, type of
stress. Stress increases cortisol levels and affect the activity
of insulin and thus shows negative effect on maintenance of
blood glucose levels on type I and II both diabetic patients
[6]. Chronic stress outcome in atrophy of mind and gradually
reduction its weight over a period of time [9]. Stress
hormones can cause vasodilation and raises blood pressure.

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Therefore stress can worsen the condition of an individual
who is suffering from diseases like asthma, emphysema [10].
It has been found from studies that stress mediators can exert
their effects on the immune system by crossing the blood-
brain barrier. Excessive stress reduces the activity of
natural killer cells and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes in our body
which allows growth of malignant cells and contribute to
expansion of tumor [11].
Machine learning is a basically ability by which
computer can learn by self without being especially program.
It is the scientific study of statistical model and algorithms
that computer system usages to complete a specific duty
without using patterns, obvious instructions, and implication
as an alternative. It is divided into four parts including
Fig.1 Role of machine learning in stress assessment.
2. Screening method
Publications were retrieved by accessing to Web of
Science database by computerized search to collect the
previous data related to the human stress. We applied this
method TITLE: ("Stress") AND TITLE: ("Machine
Learning") AND TOPIC: ("Human") AND TOPIC:
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supervised, unsupervised, semi supervised, and
reinforcement machine learning. The many physiological
signals are used in the detection, diagnosis, and prediction of
the different diseases like heart diseases, mental disorders,
skin disorders, and eye disorders [12-15]. Lai, Siddiqui and
Heyat group’s and used physiological signals and different
machine learning classifiers to detect sleep disorders [16-25].
Machine learning methods opened the new way to easily
detect, diagnose, predict, and calculate the risk of any
diseases. This study provides an outline of the stress and use
of machine learning methods in the stress management. Fig.
1 demonstrated the role of machine learning in assessing the
stress of human.
("Health") to find the exact result. Research articles written
only in English were included in this study, whereas review
articles, book chapter, abstract and other articles written in
Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese language were excluded. We
got eight articles for above method and after screening five
articles which reported the best relevance for this study were
selected. The selected papers are indexed in various popular
databases such as WOS, DIIDW, KJD, MEDLINE, RSCI,
and SCIELO.
 Fig.2 Comprehensive image of the (a) network visualization and (b) word cloud as of this study.
Table 1 Previously published article based on closest keywords such as stress, machine learning, human and health.
Author Year Major Classifier Objective Journal Name Publisher
Zhang et al. 2020 PHATE, MI KNN, RF, Protection Analytica Chimica Elsevier
[26] SVM Acta
Zhang et al. 2020 MEG, EEG wave SVM Diagnosis Scientific Reports Nature
[27]
Dubey et al. 2019 ART SVM Treatment Scientific Reports Nature
[28]
Papini et al. 2018 Medical features, LR Prediction Journal of Anxiety Elsevier
[29] Demographic features Disorders
Subhani et al. 2017 T-test, Bhattacharya LR, SVM, Detection IEE Access IEEE
[30] distance NB
PHATE: Potential of Heat-diffusion for Affinity-based Transition Embedding; MI: Mutual Information; KNN: K-Nearest
Neighbor; RF: Random Forest; SVM: Support Vector Machine; MEG: Magnetoencephalography; ART: Assisted
Reproductive Technology, LR: Logistic Regression
counting of sperm cell and treatment of infertility. They used
3. Discussion SVM and achieved 91.18 % sensitivity of the system.
Papini et al. [29] used hospital and demographic features for
In Table 1, we evaluate the five research articles based the prediction of stress using LR classifier. Subhani et al. [30]
on author, year, major, classifier, objective, journal, and extracted Bhattacharya distance as features and discriminate
publication house. Additionally, the Fig. 2 (a) and Fig. 2 (b) the control and stress group using different classifiers such
represented the network visualization [31]-[34] and world as LR, SVM, and NB.
cloud of this study, respectively. Previously, Zhang et al. [26]
used novel Potential of Heat-diffusion for Affinity-based 4. Conclusions
Transition Embedding (PHATE) and Mutual Information
(MI) techniques to imagine the data of Raman spectral. They Globally, stress is one of the health epidemics of 21st
used KNN, RF, and SVM machine learning classifiers for the century. Consequently, it is essential to control and monitor
analysis, effectiveness, and treatment of the oxidative stress. of stress, to prevent the harmful consequences in future. We
Zhang et al. [27] used EEG and MEG wave to detect the Post obtained that SVM would be helpful in the detection and
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) using SVM supervised prediction of stress disorder. In addition, several emerging
machine learning classification. They used 23 subjects and techniques such as unsupervised machine learning, deep
extracted EEG waves such as theta, gamma, alpha, and beta learning methods, quantum techniques, and block chain
as a feature extraction and classify the signals using SVM technology can be of great importance to diagnose, and
classifier on MEG signals. Dubey et al. [28] studied that predict the stress with high accuracy.
Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) used for the

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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61370073), the
National High Technology Research and Development
Program of China (Grant No. 2007AA01Z423), the project
of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province,
the project of Science and Technology Department of
Chongqing Municipality, Chengdu Chengdian Network
Technology Co., Ltd., Chengdu Civil-military Integration
Project Management Co., Ltd., and Sichuan Yin Ten Gu
Technology Co., Ltd. We also acknowledge to school
coordinator, Prof. Naseem, Syed Shafqat Ali, Dr. Lari, and
Miss Mariyam Hashmi for the support and help.
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