Gaze and pupil size variability predict difficulty-level and safe intersection crosses in a driving simulator

Author(s):  
Matthew S. Martin ◽  
Brandon Huard-Nicholls ◽  
Aaron P. Johnson

Western populations are ageing. With age comes an increased risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and fragility that leads to higher fatal car crashes. This study develops a driving simulation paradigm that seeks to detect unsafe drivers, particularly among older drivers with MCI. The paradigm includes repeated urban intersection crossings at three difficulty levels while eye movements are tracked. The internal validity of this part of the paradigm was tested with young adults ( N = 7). Results indicated that the simulator tests elicited unsafe driving behaviors that varied across difficulty and avoided ceiling and floor effects. Eye movement metrics associated with cognitive load also varied with difficulty and predicted safe crosses. The strongest predictors were gaze transition entropy, gaze variability, and pupil size entropy. These findings indicate internal validity of the tests. Future research should test the external validity of this paradigm with a larger, more diverse sample.

Crisis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 433-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Gryglewicz ◽  
Melanie Bozzay ◽  
Brittany Arthur-Jordon ◽  
Gabriela D. Romero ◽  
Melissa Witmeier ◽  
...  

Abstract. Background: Given challenges that exceed the normal developmental requirements of adolescence, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) youth are believed to be at elevated risk for engaging in suicide-related behavior (SRB). Unfortunately, little is known about the mechanisms that put these youth potentially at risk. Aims: To determine whether peer relationship difficulties are related to increased risk of SRB in DHH youth. Method: Student records (n = 74) were retrieved from an accredited educational center for deaf and blind students in the United States. Results: Peer relationship difficulties were found to be significantly associated with engagement in SRB but not when accounting for depressive symptomatology. Limitations: The restricted sample limits generalizability. Conclusions regarding risk causation cannot be made due to the cross-sectional nature of the study. Conclusion: These results suggest the need for future research that examines the mechanisms of the relationship between peer relationship difficulties, depression, and suicide risk in DHH youth and potential preventive interventions to ameliorate the risks for these at-risk youth.


SLEEP ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. A136-A136
Author(s):  
S Brooks ◽  
R G J A Zuiker ◽  
G E Jacobs ◽  
I Kezic ◽  
A Savitz ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Seltorexant (JNJ-42847922), a potent and selective antagonist of the human orexin-2 receptor, is being developed for the treatment of major depressive disorder. Seltorexant also has sleep-promoting properties. Investigating the effects of sleep-promoting medications on driving is important because some of these agents (e.g. GABAA receptor agonists) may be associated with increased risk of motor vehicle accidents. We evaluated the effect of seltorexant on driving after forced awakening at night, using a validated driving simulator. Methods This double-blind, placebo and active-controlled, randomized, 3-way cross-over study was conducted in 18 male and 18 female healthy subjects. All subjects received seltorexant 40 mg, zolpidem 10 mg, or placebo 15 minutes before bedtime. Eighteen subjects were awakened at 2- and 6-hours post-dose, and the other 18 at 4- and 8-hours post-dose. At those timepoints, pharmacokinetics, objective (standard deviation of the lateral position [SDLP]) and subjective effects (using Perceived Driving Quality and Effort Scales) on driving ability, postural stability and subjective sleepiness were assessed. Results For seltorexant, the SDLP difference from placebo (95% confidence interval) at 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-hours post-dose was 3.9 cm (1.26, 6.60), 0.9 cm (-1.08, 2.92), 1.1 cm (-0.42, 2.63), and 0.6 cm (-2.75, 1.55), respectively vs. 9.6 cm (6.97, 12.38), 6.6 cm (3.53, 9.60), 4.7 cm (1.46, 7.85), and 1.3cm (-1.16, 3.80), respectively for zolpidem. The difference from placebo was significant at 2-hours after taking seltorexant, while the difference from placebo was significant at 2, 4 and 6-hours after zolpidem. Subjective driving quality was decreased for both drugs at all time points and driving effort was increased up to 4-hours post-dose for both medications. Subjective sleepiness showed a significant increase compared to placebo 2- and 4-hours after administration of either drug. Postural stability was decreased up to 2-hours after administration of seltorexant, and up to 4-hours after administration of zolpidem. Conclusion Compared to zolpidem, objective effects on driving performance were more transient after seltorexant administration and largely normalized by 4–6 hours post-dose. Support (if any) This work was sponsored by Janssen R&D.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Stephanie A Kliethermes ◽  
Stephen W Marshall ◽  
Cynthia R LaBella ◽  
Andrew M Watson ◽  
Joel S Brenner ◽  
...  

Sport specialisation is becoming increasingly common among youth and adolescent athletes in the USA and many have raised concern about this trend. Although research on sport specialisation has grown significantly, numerous pressing questions remain pertaining to short-term and long-term effects of specialisation on the health and well-being of youth, including the increased risk of overuse injury and burnout. Many current elite athletes did not specialise at an early age. Methodological and study design limitations impact the quality of current literature, and researchers need to prioritise pressing research questions to promote safe and healthy youth sport participation. The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine hosted a Youth Early Sport Specialization Summit in April 2019 with the goal of synthesising and reviewing current scientific knowledge and developing a research agenda to guide future research in the field based on the identified gaps in knowledge. This statement provides a broad summary of the existing literature, gaps and limitations in current evidence and identifies key research priorities to help guide researchers conducting research on youth sport specialisation. Our goals are to help improve the quality and relevance of research on youth sport specialisation and to ultimately assure that opportunities for healthy and safe sport participation continue for all youth.


Author(s):  
Daniele Piovani ◽  
Claudia Pansieri ◽  
Soumya R R Kotha ◽  
Amanda C Piazza ◽  
Celia-Louise Comberg ◽  
...  

Abstract Background and aims The association between smoking and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) relies on old meta-analyses including exclusively non-Jewish White populations. Uncertainty persists regarding the role of smoking in other ethnicities. Methods We systematically searched Medline/PubMed, Embase and Scopus for studies examining tobacco smoking and the risk of developing IBD, i.e., Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). Two authors independently extracted study data and assessed each study’s risk-of-bias. We examined heterogeneity and small-study effect, and calculated summary estimates using random-effects models. Stratified analyses and meta-regression were employed to study the association between study-level characteristics and effect estimates. The strength of epidemiological evidence was assessed through prespecified criteria. Results We synthesized 57 studies examining the smoking-related risk of developing CD and UC. Non-Jewish White smokers were at increased risk of CD (29 studies; RR: 1.95, 95% CI: 1.69‒2.24; moderate evidence). No association was observed in Asian, Jewish and Latin-American populations (11 studies; RR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.83–1.13), with no evidence of heterogeneity across these ethnicities. Smokers were at reduced risk of UC (51 studies; RR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.48–0.64; weak evidence) irrespectively of ethnicity; however, cohort studies, large studies and those recently published showed attenuated associations. Conclusions This meta-analysis did not identify any increased risk of CD in smokers in ethnicities other than non-Jewish Whites, and confirmed the protective effect of smoking on UC occurrence. Future research should characterize the genetic background of CD patients across different ethnicities to improve our understanding on the role of smoking in CD pathogenesis.


Author(s):  
Peter Cox ◽  
Sonal Gupta ◽  
Sizheng Steven Zhao ◽  
David M. Hughes

AbstractThe aims of this systematic review and meta-analysis were to describe prevalence of cardiovascular disease in gout, compare these results with non-gout controls and consider whether there were differences according to geography. PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science were systematically searched for studies reporting prevalence of any cardiovascular disease in a gout population. Studies with non-representative sampling, where a cohort had been used in another study, small sample size (< 100) and where gout could not be distinguished from other rheumatic conditions were excluded, as were reviews, editorials and comments. Where possible meta-analysis was performed using random-effect models. Twenty-six studies comprising 949,773 gout patients were included in the review. Pooled prevalence estimates were calculated for five cardiovascular diseases: myocardial infarction (2.8%; 95% confidence interval (CI)s 1.6, 5.0), heart failure (8.7%; 95% CI 2.9, 23.8), venous thromboembolism (2.1%; 95% CI 1.2, 3.4), cerebrovascular accident (4.3%; 95% CI 1.8, 9.7) and hypertension (63.9%; 95% CI 24.5, 90.6). Sixteen studies reported comparisons with non-gout controls, illustrating an increased risk in the gout group across all cardiovascular diseases. There were no identifiable reliable patterns when analysing the results by country. Cardiovascular diseases are more prevalent in patients with gout and should prompt vigilance from clinicians to the need to assess and stratify cardiovascular risk. Future research is needed to investigate the link between gout, hyperuricaemia and increased cardiovascular risk and also to establish a more thorough picture of prevalence for less common cardiovascular diseases.


Toxics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Mathilda Alsen ◽  
Catherine Sinclair ◽  
Peter Cooke ◽  
Kimia Ziadkhanpour ◽  
Eric Genden ◽  
...  

Endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDC) are known to alter thyroid function and have been associated with increased risk of certain cancers. The present study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of available studies on the association between EDC exposure and thyroid cancer. Relevant studies were identified via a literature search in the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health PubMed as well as a review of reference lists of all retrieved articles and of previously published relevant reviews. Overall, the current literature suggests that exposure to certain congeners of flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and phthalates as well as certain pesticides may potentially be associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer. However, future research is urgently needed to evaluate the different EDCs and their potential carcinogenic effect on the thyroid gland in humans as most EDCs have been studied sporadically and results are not consistent.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott C Adams ◽  
Jennifer Herman ◽  
Iliana C Lega ◽  
Laura Mitchell ◽  
David Hodgson ◽  
...  

Abstract Survivors of adolescent and young adult cancers (AYAs) often live 50 to 60 years beyond their diagnosis. This rapidly growing cohort is at increased risk for cancer- and treatment-related late effects that persist for decades into survivorship. Recognition of similar issues in pediatric cancer survivors has prompted the development of evidence-based guidelines for late effects screening and care. However, corresponding evidence-based guidelines for AYAs have not been developed. We hosted an AYA survivorship symposium for a large group of multidisciplinary AYA stakeholders (approximately 200 were in attendance) at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (Toronto, ON) to begin addressing this disparity. The following overview briefly summarizes and discusses the symposium’s stakeholder-identified high-priority targets for late effects screening and care, and highlights knowledge gaps to direct future research in the field of AYA survivorship. This overview, while not exhaustive, is intended to stimulate clinicians to consider these high-priority screening and care targets when seeing survivors in clinical settings and, ultimately, support the development of evidence-based ‘late effects’ screening and care guidelines for AYAs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (25) ◽  
pp. 1550148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Shi ◽  
Jin-Hua Tan

Heavy fog weather can increase traffic accidents and lead to freeway closures which result in delays. This paper aims at exploring traffic accident and emission characteristics in heavy fog, as well as freeway intermittent release measures for heavy fog weather. A driving simulator experiment is conducted for obtaining driving behaviors in heavy fog. By proposing a multi-cell cellular automaton (CA) model based on the experimental data, the role of intermittent release measures on the reduction of traffic accidents and CO emissions is studied. The results show that, affected by heavy fog, when cellular occupancy [Formula: see text], the probability of traffic accidents is much higher; and CO emissions increase significantly when [Formula: see text]. After an intermittent release measure is applied, the probability of traffic accidents and level of CO emissions become reasonable. Obviously, the measure can enhance traffic safety and reduce emissions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J Tarazona-Santabalbina ◽  
Juan R Doménech-Pascual ◽  
Ángel Belenguer-Varea A ◽  
Eduardo Rovira Daudi

SummaryHip fracture is very common among older patients, who are characterized by increased co-morbidities, including cognitive impairment. These patients have an increased risk of falls and fractures, poorer functional recovery and lower survival both in hospital and 12 months after discharge. We review the survival and functional outcomes of older patients with cognitive impairment and hip fracture managed in orthogeriatric units, and highlight the gaps in our knowledge of the efficacy and efficiency of specific orthogeriatric programmes for such patients and the future research perspectives in this field.


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