A research group led by Professor Nobuyuki Kawai of the Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University conducted an experiment in which the limbs responded to the color and shape of the signal. It turns out that more activity is needed.The results suggest that brain activity is the cause of accidents caused by incorrect braking by elderly drivers, which has been increasing recently.

 According to Nagoya University, the research group is an experiment targeting 21 university students and 23 elderly people, stepping on the right foot if the signal shape is 〇, the left foot if the signal shape is △, the right pedal if the signal color is green, and the left pedal if the signal color is red. We investigated the activity of the frontal lobe, which is responsible for switching and suppressing reactions in the brain.

 As a result, it was found that there was no difference in the results between the elderly and college students, but the frontal lobe of the elderly had more neural activity than the college students.In addition, both elderly and college students needed more brain activity when pedaling diagonally with their feet.

 At first glance, it seems that there is no problem with the response switching ability of the elderly, but the research group believes that if the processing capacity of the frontal lobe exceeds the limit, it may lead to a major accident such as a mistake in braking.

 However, assuming that the potential danger of braking mistakes cannot be detected by this experiment alone, we will proceed with research in a situation closer to actual driving and try to clarify the cause.

Paper information:[Behavioural Brain Research] Do older adults mistake the accelerator for the brake pedal ?: Older adults employ greater prefrontal cortical activity during a bipedal / bimanual response-position selection task

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