Chapter 9 - Neuroscience and Young Drivers

Abstract

Driver crash rates increase up to age 18 or 19 years and decline slowly thereafter. Crash risk is the greatest during the first 6 months or 1000 km of independent driving. Understanding the full implications of absolute and differential stages of brain development for driving remains in its early stages. Because behaviors emanate from integrated activity among distributed networks, a research priority is to link brain regions and circuits with relevant cognitions, including those relating to safety and risk perception, and behaviors relevant to avoiding danger and managing risk. For example, identified seven separate brain networks involved in a simulated driving task in small samples of young drivers: bilateral components of the parietooccipital sulcus, including portions of cuneus, precuneus, and lingual gyrus—involved in visual monitoring; mainly occipital areasdfor low-order visual processing; bilateral visual association and parietal areas—for high-order visual processing and visuomotor integration; motor cortex and cellebellar areas—for gross motor control and motor planning; orbitofrontal and cingulated—for error monitoring and inhibition, including motivation, risk assessment, and internal space; and medial frontal, parietal, and posterior cingulatedfor vigilance, including spatial attention, visual stream, monitoring, and external space. Comparing task performance of adolescent samples aged 15 and 16 and 18–20 years, proposed greater amplitude in anterior cingulated cortex activity among the older group. This brain region, associated with performance errors and self-monitoring, was found to be more mature in the older group.