Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 11, 2026
Driving Simulation in the Clinic: Testing Visual Exploratory Behavior in Daily Life Activities in Patients with Visual Field Defects
Published on: September 18, 2012
Cognitive performance and neural correlates of detecting driving hazards in healthy older adults
Victor A Hirth1, Ben Davis, Julius Fridriksson
1Division of Geriatrics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29203, USA. Victor.Hirth@Palmettohealth.org
Background/Aims:
In spite of the growing number of seniors who drive and their relatively frequent involvement in accidents, little is known about the cognitive substrates of road hazard recognition and their relationship with general cognitive performance in this population. We aimed to investigate, using a combination of functional MRI (fMRI) and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, the anatomical and cognitive components of driving hazard recognition.
Methods:
Fourteen healthy active drivers aged between 65 and 87 years underwent neuropsychological evaluation and fMRI scanning. fMRI was performed while subjects watched a video composed of clips of driving hazards randomly interspersed with uneventful driving clips. We investigated brain areas that are recruited for hazard detection, in contrast to brain areas responding to driving without a hazard. The performance on neuropsychological tests was then regressed with the degree of activation of cortical areas related exclusively to detecting hazards.
Results:
Driving hazards generated significant activations, compared to non-hazards, in the lateral associative occipital cortex and in the right prefrontal cortex. Intensity of brain activation was correlated on performance on memory and cognitive control neuropsychological tests.
Conclusion:
Future studies can possibly address the same relationship in early dementia, as a preliminary form of investigation for driving safety.
