Basic Study of Analysis of Human Brain Activities during Car Driving

Recently, as the worldwide population grows older, it is thought that various assistive systems have soared. It is necessary to discuss functions of humans, spatial perception, decision-making, and determining direction, for developing assistive systems. The final goal of our research is to contribute to developing of welfare robots with functions that are responsive like human. We measured brain activities during virtual car driving using NIRS. As a result of these experiments, there were significant differences at outside frontal cortex in left brain. This go-round, we measured brain activity during actual car driving. In general roads, experiments were performed by taking f-NIRS in the car, and measuring the brain activity when car driven by subjects was went through a number of intersections and road signs. In addition, there was significant difference in common regions. We report a significant association between car driving and brain activity.