Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture

“Primum non nocere”, the guiding principle of medicine credited to Hippocrates, emphatically asks that we first do no harm; our architectural principles must serve the same goal. Yet, too often the form and function of architectural environments neglect to take into account the influence of the built setting on human responses and indeed, on human health itself. How can we assess this influence in an objective, consistent manner? Can we predict what this influence in the early stages of design and before the structure is built? An emerging discipline, one that bridges neuroscience and architecture, is beginning to provide more rigorous methodologies and a growing number of research reports that explores the interaction between brain, body, building, and the environment.

Wireless physiological/neurological monitoring in virtual reality (VR) offers a unique opportunity for unobtrusively quantifying human responses to precisely controlled and readily modulated VR representations of health care environments. Here we present such a wireless, light-weight head-mounted system for measuring electrooculogram (EOG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) activity in human subjects interacting with and navigating in the Calit2 StarCAVE, a five-sided immersive 3-D visualization VR environment. The system can be easily expanded to include other measurements, such as cardiac activity and galvanic skin responses. We demonstrate the capacity of the system to track focus of gaze in 3-D and report a novel calibration procedure for estimating eye movements from responses to the presentation of a set of dynamic visual cues in the StarCAVE. We discuss cyber and clinical applications that include a 3-D cursor for visual navigation in VR interactive environments, and the monitoring of neurological and ocular dysfunction in vision/attention disorders.

The architects behind a new generation of laboratories believe their designs can stimulate good science. Laura Bonetta finds out how, and looks at research that may one day help to test their claims.