A deep-brain network hypothesis of crisis prevention ability: proposal and verification

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K04921
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 25020:Safety engineering-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Katagiri Yoshitada 東京大学, 大学院工学系研究科(工学部), 上席研究員 (60462876)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 光吉 俊二 東京大学, 大学院工学系研究科(工学部), 特任准教授 (30570262)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 深部脳活動 / 心象 / 知覚 / 身体化認知 / 危険回避 / 脳機能計測

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The current study aimed to elicit neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning risk of car driving by elder people. We conducted three tasks to show the validity of our hypothesis that the risk could be attributed to aging of sensory organs. In the first task in a stimulus-response compatibility paradigm, we found that mistakes were made by mismatch between perceptual physical responses and semantic cognition of stimuli. In the second task in a cued-tapping paradigm, we found that frequent erroneous taps for missing beats were promoted by modal completion. In the final task in a word-pair congruency judgement paradigm, we found that perceptual markers were formed to detect irrelevant word pairs for promptly activating imagery.
Taken together these findings, we concluded that imbalance between perception and imagery might cause cognitive degradation leading to the car-driving risk.

Free Research Field

生命機能工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

高齢者が起こす自動車事故の第一要因としてアクセルとブレーキの踏み間違いが挙げられていますが、神経生理学的メカニズムは必ずしも明らかではありませんでした。本研究の成果は、認知症と関連する中枢の神経変性とは異なる、末梢の感覚器鈍麻が認知機能の障害の原因になり得ることを初めて実証しました。この知見は、高齢者のリスク評価に心象と身体化認知という新たな視点を与えるもので社会的意義は大きいと考えられます。