Poster presentations

Abstract

The muscles of the human airway are innervated by a variety of cranial nerves, refl ecting the varied functions of the airway. This raises the question: to what extent is respiratory motor control similar in muscles controlled by different cranial nerves? In addressing this question three features of airway muscles will be evaluated: the presence of preinspiratory activation; the range of different motor unit discharge patterns identifi ed in muscles; and the effect of sleep onset. Inspiratory Sleep, Science and Research A2Introduction: Apnoea is defi ned as cessation of breathing with implicit pathophysiology. For preterm infants apnoea defi nitions are not Invited speakersThe Divided Attention Steering Simulator (DASS) developed in the UK and the AusEd driving simulator developed jointly by UK and Australian investigators are simple relatively inexpensive computer based simulators able to acquire steering and speed deviation, divided attention, braking reaction and crash data at 10 Hz and 30 Hz respectively. The INRETS and the OKTAL simulator developed in France are more advanced with real car interior controls to manoeuvre the vehicle. They use large high defi nition display (3D for the OKTAL) and collect more comprehensive data from fuel consumption to steering, braking and crashes. On-road vehicles equipped with dual controls and video cameras able to detect lane position have now been used by French sleep researchers. The use of professional driving instructors to assess driving performance during on-road driving has also been used in Australia.When simple simulators such as the DASS have been compared to real driving, simulator performance measures correlate with on-road performance (relative validity) but tend to overestimate and magnify performance impairments relative to real driving. Higher fi delity simulators are found to more precisely represent real driving approaching "absolute validity". The use of driving simulators and on-road driving experiments in patients with OSA reveal that regardless of which driving assessment tool is used, OSA patients' consistently show significantly worse performance compared to non-OSA subjects, often with large effect sizes.Basic and more advanced driving simulators are useful to detect driving performance impairment in OSA patients particularly in simple experimental designs. With further development of high fi delity validated driving simulators, these tools should become more accessible and provide more reliable information on driving performance in OSA and other populations at risk of MVAs and allow for more complicated and realistic experimental designs.