Near-infrared spectroscopy as a tool for driving research

Abstract

Driving a motor vehicle requires various cognitive functions to process surrounding information, to guide appropriate actions, and especially to respond to or integrate with numerous contextual and perceptual hindrances or risks. It is, thus, imperative to examine driving performance and road safety from a perspective of cognitive neuroscience, which considers both the behaviour and the functioning of the brain. However, because of technical limitations of current brain imaging approaches, studies have primarily adopted driving games or simulators to present participants with simulated driving environments that may have less ecological validity. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a relatively new, non-invasive brain-imaging technique allowing measurement of brain activations in more realistic settings, even within real motor vehicles. This study reviews current NIRS driving research and explores NIRS' potential as a new tool to examine driving behaviour, along with various risk factors in natural situations, promoting our understanding about neural mechanisms of driving safety.Practitioner Summary: Driving a vehicle is dependent on a range of neurocognitive processing abilities. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive brain-imaging technique allowing measurement of brain activation even in on-road studies within real motor vehicles. This study reviews current NIRS driving research and explores the potential of NIRS as a new tool to examine driving behaviour.

Decoding Neural Correlates of Cognitive States to Enhance Driving Experience

“…The p values were obtained using Student's t-distribution with the assumption of bivariate normal distribution. A positive correlation was found between the beta power modulation (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35) and the reaction time (ρ = 0.2 and 0.18 for FCz and CPz respectively), suggesting that the faster the reaction, the more decrease in beta. However, these correlations were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).…”

“…Interestingly, some research groups have evaluated the possibility of applying transfer learning methods to reduce the amount of subject-specific data required to calibrate the EEG decoder [8], [9]. Recent studies performing simultaneous EEG and functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recordings showed promising results on the use of the latter modality to obtain information about driver's drowsiness [17], [22]. Upon recognition of these mental states, the driving assistance system can make actions aimed at improving driver alertness [23].…”

Prefrontal Cortex Activation Upon a Demanding Virtual Hand-Controlled Task: A New Frontier for Neuroergonomics

“…For example, the involvement of the medial PFC (mPFC) and the frontopolar cortex (Ayaz et al, 2012b ) and the inferior frontal gyrus (Harrison et al, 2014 ) was observed in subjects while executing air traffic control tasks; an activation of the overall frontal cortex was observed in subjects while performing a train piloting task (Kojima et al, 2005 ). Very recently, the usefulness of fNIRS as a tool to conduct driving research has been nicely reviewed (Liu et al, 2015 ). For example, an activation of the right PFC (Tomioka et al, 2009 ) and an activation of the overall PFC (Tsunashima and Yanagisawa, 2009 ) were found in subjects while executing different simulated car driving tasks.…”

Exploring the Brain Responses to Driving Fatigue Through Simultaneous EEG and fNIRS Measurements

“…[4][5][6] Recent research shows that fatigue can be accurately identified through brain dynamics. [4][5][6][7][8][9] Therefore, brain activations in response to fatigue have become increasingly critical area of study over the past few decades. [7][8][9] Further, numerous studies have explored the relationships between brain oscillations and mental fatigue through tonic or phasic EEG changes.…”