Prefrontal Cortex Activation and Young Driver Behaviour: A fNIRS Study.
Prefrontal Cortex Activation and Young Driver Behaviour: A fNIRS Study.
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0156512
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Chapman P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Foy HJ;Runham P;Chapman P
道路交通事故一直表明，年轻、新手、特别是男性驾驶员所占比例过高。本研究探讨了年轻驾驶员的前额叶皮层激活，以及与心理负荷和抑制控制操作相关的激活变化。它还认为，缺乏前额叶皮层成熟的解释是一个促成因素，在这个年轻的司机群体较高的事故风险。前额叶皮层与心理负荷和抑制控制等因素有关，这两个因素也与道路交通事故有关。本实验采用功能性近红外光谱技术测量了五种模拟驾驶任务（一种跟车任务和四种不同交通密度下的超车任务）中前额叶皮层的活动，旨在分离工作负荷和抑制控制。在整个实验过程中，年龄、经验和性别都受到控制。结果显示，与年长的司机相比，年轻的司机前额叶皮层活动减少。当心理负荷和抑制控制都增加时，前额叶皮层的活动也增加了，但是当抑制控制单独增加时，活动没有变化。沿着超车动作中活动的增加，这些结果表明，前额叶皮层的激活更能反映当前任务的工作量。年轻和年长的司机完成超车的次数没有差异，但男性超车明显多于女性。我们的结论是，前额叶皮层的活动与超车所需的精神负荷有关。我们还认为，年轻驾驶员的激活减少可能与前额叶发育不足有关，这可能导致该人群中撞车风险增加。
Road traffic accidents consistently show a significant over-representation for young, novice and particularly male drivers. This research examines the prefrontal cortex activation of young drivers and the changes in activation associated with manipulations of mental workload and inhibitory control. It also considers the explanation that a lack of prefrontal cortex maturation is a contributing factor to the higher accident risk in this young driver population. The prefrontal cortex is associated with a number of factors including mental workload and inhibitory control, both of which are also related to road traffic accidents. This experiment used functional near infrared spectroscopy to measure prefrontal cortex activity during five simulated driving tasks: one following task and four overtaking tasks at varying traffic densities which aimed to dissociate workload and inhibitory control. Age, experience and gender were controlled for throughout the experiment. The results showed that younger drivers had reduced prefrontal cortex activity compared to older drivers. When both mental workload and inhibitory control increased prefrontal cortex activity also increased, however when inhibitory control alone increased there were no changes in activity. Along with an increase in activity during overtaking manoeuvres, these results suggest that prefrontal cortex activation is more indicative of workload in the current task. There were no differences in the number of overtakes completed by younger and older drivers but males overtook significantly more than females. We conclude that prefrontal cortex activity is associated with the mental workload required for overtaking. We additionally suggest that the reduced activation in younger drivers may be related to a lack of prefrontal maturation which could contribute to the increased crash risk seen in this population.