Analyzing neural activity under prolonged mask usage through EEG

[Display omitted] •Prolonged mask usage (≥2 h) significantly deteriorates the oxygen saturation levels inside a human body while other physiological parameters i.e. heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure vary insignificantly.•Affected SpO2 levels due to mask jeopardize the cognitive performance of humans as assessed by the point score difference of the alphabet game.•In terms of brain activity, measured through EEG, it suppresses neural activity and impacts the frontal and occipital regions more while carrying out cognitive tasks.•In terms of brain waves, alpha, beta, and gamma are affected the most as they account for visual focus, concentration, decision-making, problem-solving, information processing, and memory recalling and LDA verifies the variation of channels F3, F7 and AF4 in the frontal lobe (beta and gamma band) and O1, O2 in the occipital lobe (alpha band)•The effects of mask could vary from individual to individual. Variation may also occur due to differences in gender, age, type of mask, period of wearing, mental fatigue, and tiredness. In recent COVID times, mask has been a compulsion at workplaces and institutes as a preventive measure against multiple viral diseases including coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. However, the effects of prolonged mask-wearing on humans’ neural activity are not well known. This paper is to investigate the effect of prolonged mask usage on the human brain through electroencephalogram (EEG), which acquires neural activity and translates it into comprehensible electrical signals. The performances of 10 human subjects with and without mask were assessed on a random patterned alphabet game. Besides EEG, physiological parameters of oxygen saturation, heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature were recorded. Spectral and statistical analysis were performed on the recorded entities along with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) on extracted spectral features. The mean EEG spectral power in alpha, beta, and gamma sub-bands of the subjects with mask was smaller than the subjects without mask. The performances on the task and the oxygen saturation level between the two groups differed significantly (p