{"id":2143,"date":"2026-09-30T07:29:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2026-09-30T07:29:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:29:53","slug":"volatile-organic-compounds-for-stress-detection-a-scoping-review-and-exploratory-feasibility-study-with-low-cost-sensors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/?p=2143","title":{"rendered":"Volatile Organic Compounds for Stress Detection: A Scoping Review and Exploratory Feasibility Study with Low-Cost Sensors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An open-access article was published challenging our understanding of stress detection by investigating volatile organic compounds (VOCs), revealing a standalone signal from low-cost sensors but critically reflecting on their current incremental value and the rigorous evaluation methods needed for future biomarker research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Plintz, N., Vetter, M., &amp; Ifenthaler, D. (2026). Volatile organic compounds for stress detection: A scoping review and exploratory feasibility study with low-cost sensors. IEEE Access. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/ACCESS.2026.3737607\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/ACCESS.2026.3737607<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are an underexplored modality for emotion recognition. This paper presents a systematic evidence synthesis and an exploratory feasibility study with low-cost sensors. Study 1, a PRISMA-ScR-guided scoping review, analyzed 12 studies from 679 records (11 primary studies across breath, sweat, and skin; one urinary reported separately). Stress and affect may be reflected in VOC signatures (aldehydes, ketones, fatty acids, sulfur compounds), but findings are heterogeneous, largely laboratory-based (GC-MS, PTR-MS), while wearable sensors provide pattern-level outputs. Study 2 (n=25) explored whether low-cost TVOC sensors (BME688, ENS160) and physiological monitoring (HR, GSR) detect laboratory-induced stress. Stress induction was confirmed (heart-rate dz = 1.94; self-report Friedman p &lt; .001). Group-level TVOC did not change significantly from baseline to stress (dz = \u22120.21), and circular-shift permutation analyses found no reliable individual-level physiological\u2013VOC coupling (0 of 24 participants; between-person CV > 80%). Under leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) validation, the VOC channel nevertheless classified stress above chance in isolation (63.6%) yet proved redundant with heart-rate and electrodermal features (66.4% without vs. 65.8% with VOC). Within-sample 5-fold cross-validation yielded an inflated 77.6% due to subject-level leakage. Contributions: (1) mapping of VOC biomarker evidence and technological gaps; (2) subject-independent evidence that low-cost TVOC sensors carry a genuine standalone stress-related signal that does not yet add incremental value over cardiovascular sensing; (3) identification of implementation challenges (inter-individual variability, sensor-level missing data) and a methodological demonstration that within-sample cross-validation inverts modality rankings, underscoring subject-independent evaluation as the appropriate standard. All findings are hypothesis-generating and require replication (n\u226550).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/document\/11712258\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/document\/11712258<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An open-access article was published challenging our understanding of stress detection by investigating volatile organic compounds (VOCs), revealing a standalone signal from low-cost sensors but critically&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifenthaler.info\/website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}