Aging Brains Degrade Driving Safety Performances of the Healthy Elderly

Kaechang Park; Kazumi Renge; Yoshinori Nakagawa; Fumio Yamashita; Masahiro Tada; Yasuhiko Kumagai

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2021.783717

Aging Brains Degrade Driving Safety Performances of the Healthy Elderly

Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Jan 25:13:783717. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.783717. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Kaechang Park¹, Kazumi Renge², Yoshinori Nakagawa³, Fumio Yamashita⁴, Masahiro Tada⁵, Yasuhiko Kumagai¹

Affiliations

¹ Traffic Medicine Laboratory, Research Organization for Regional Alliance, Kochi University of Technology, Kami, Japan.
² Faculty of Psychology, Tezukayama University, Nara, Japan.
³ Department of Management, Kochi University of Technology, Kami, Japan.
⁴ Division of Ultrahigh Field MRI, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan.
⁵ Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kindai University, Higashiosaka, Japan.

Abstract

The relationship between aging brains and driving safety performances (DSPs) of elderly drivers was studied. A total of 90 dementia-free participants (63 men and 27 women, mean age 75.31 ± 4.795 years) were recruited and their DSPs were analyzed on actual vehicles running through a closed-circuit course. DSPs were comprehensively evaluated on the basis of driving instructors' scores (DIS). Signaling and visual research behaviors, part of DSPs, were measured to supplement the DIS evaluation by driving recorders (DR) and wearable wireless sensors (WS), respectively. Aging brains were evaluated via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings and experimentally assigned to two grades (high vs. low) of brain atrophy (BA) and leukoaraiosis (LA). Regression analyses on DIS and DR data, and logistic analysis on WS scores showed significant correlations of aging brains with degradation of DSPs. The participant group with more advanced BAs and LAs showed lower DIS, DR data, and WS scores representing degraded DSP regardless of age. These results suggest that MRI examinations from both volumetric and pathological perspectives of brains have the potential to help identify elderly drivers with dangerous driving behaviors. Brain healthcare, lifestyle improvements and medical treatments to suppress BA and LA, may contribute to preventing DSP degradation of elderly drivers with aging brains.

Keywords: brain atrophy; dementia-free; driving safety performances; elderly drivers; leukoaraiosis.