Effects of All-Night Driving on Selective Attention in Professional Truck Drivers: A Preliminary Functional Magnetic Resonance Study

Stefan P. Gazdzinski, Marek Binder, Alicja Bortkiewicz, Paulina Baran and Łukasz Dziuda
Additional contact information
Stefan P. Gazdzinski: Department of Neuroimaging, Military Institute of Aviation Medicine, Krasinskiego 54/56, 01-755 Warszawa, Poland
Marek Binder: Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Ingardena 6, 30-060 Krakow, Poland
Alicja Bortkiewicz: Nofer Collegium, Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, św. Teresy od dzieciątka Jezus 8, 91-438 Lodz, Poland
Paulina Baran: Department of Psychophysiological Measurements and Human Factor Research, Military Institute of Aviation Medicine, Krasińskiego 54/56, 01-755 Warszawa, Poland
Łukasz Dziuda: Department of Psychophysiological Measurements and Human Factor Research, Military Institute of Aviation Medicine, Krasińskiego 54/56, 01-755 Warszawa, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: Fatigue affects multiple aspects of cognitive performance among drivers. However, even after fatigue builds up, some are still able to maintain the level of behavioral performance. To evaluate these adaptations on the neural network level, we utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Seventeen male professional drivers underwent two fMRI sessions, once while rested and once in a fatigued condition after 10-h of overnight driving. The cognitive task used in the study involved the detection of visual feature conjunctions, namely the shape and the color. There were no significant differences in the task performance between the conditions except for longer reaction times in the fatigued condition. However, we observed substantial differences in the activation patterns during the cognitive task involving selective attention between the conditions. On the global level, we observed a general decrease in activation strength in the fatigued condition, which appeared to be more pronounced in the left hemisphere. On the local level, we observed a (spatially) extended activation of the medial prefrontal regions in the fatigued condition, which reflected increased cognitive control mechanisms compensating for the diminished efficiency of mechanisms involved in meeting task demands.

Keywords: fatigue; selective attention; functional brain imaging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/17/5409/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/17/5409/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:17:p:5409-:d:625873

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().