Sleep deprivation affects eye-steering coordination when driving

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Driving a vehicle requires coordination of horizontal eye movements and steering. A research abstract that will be presented Monday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS), finds that even a single night of sleep deprivation can impact a person's ability to coordinate eye movements with steering.

The study, authored by Mark Chattington of Manchester Metropolitan University, focused on six participants, who drove a winding route on a driving simulator. On the first day, they drove for one hour starting at 5 p.m. The subjects were kept awake the following night, and on day two, drove again at 5 p.m. for up to two-and-a-half hours. Their eye movements were monitored using a dashboard mounted eye tracker, and steering wheel movement was monitored through a precision potentiometer attached to the steering column.

The results showed that, in all drivers, sleep deprivation adversely affected their ability to coordinate eye movements when steering. There were instances of both acute and chronic reductions in the degree of coordination and in the time lead of eye movements over steering.

"The analysis of eye-steering coordination may provide a useful method of detecting when a driver is in danger of losing control of a vehicle due to fatigue, before the driver actually falls asleep," said Chattington.

The amount of sleep a person gets affects his or her physical health, emotional well-being, mental abilities, productivity and performance. Recent studies associate lack of sleep with serious health problems such as an increased risk of depression, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Related stories:

Note to people with scarred and stiffened lungs: Monitor your sleep before severe fatigue sets in
Family, friends and neighbors remember Lisa Sandler Spaeth as an active mother of two in Potomac, Md., with a lot on the go, juggling her son's baseball games and her daughter's horseback-riding lessons with numerous committee obligations, organizing women's activities at her local synagogue. Add to this Spaeth's thriving home business turned wholesale supplier - making custom hair accessories for children - which she founded with her mother.
Surgery improves quality of life for children with sleep apnea
For children who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy can provide dramatic relief and is successful in solving sleep problems for 80 to 90 percent of children, a Saint Louis University study found.
Violent sleep disorder linked to a form of dementia
Mayo Clinic researchers and a group of international collaborators have discovered a correlation between an extreme form of sleep disorder and eventual onset of parkinsonism or dementia. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Brain.
Eye muscles -- those go-getters of the anatomical world
The eye, often called the window to the soul, may become a window to the mysteries of muscular dystrophy, a debilitating muscle disease that often leads to death in early adulthood.
A new awakening for sleep research
The IST project SENSATION is an ambitious project of 46 partners from 20 different countries, addressing sensing of physiological parameters, core computation, medical and industrial research. The aim is to take sleep research to a whole new level by developing a multipurpose sensing platform consisting of 17 micro sensors and two nano sensors, connected through a local area network.
MIT researcher explains how rats think
After running a maze, rats mentally replay their actions - but backward, like a film played in reverse, a researcher at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT reports Feb. 12 in the advance online edition of Nature.
Violent dreams may hint at why dreaming evolved, researchers say
Twenty years ago, scientists discovered a bizarre disorder whose victims act out their dreams while asleep, often hurting themselves or their spouses in the process.
One patient kicked a hole in his bedroom wall, according to a paper published in a medical journal. Another tried to jump out a window. A third fired an unloaded gun, a fourth attempted to set his bed on fire. Still others tried to choke their wives.
Pill that boosts productivity gaining favor, raising concerns among medical ethicists
In a place like Silicon Valley, where career prospects often hinge on a person's intelligence and ability to work hellishly long hours, "brain doping" probably was inevitable.

News discussion:

Medicine & Health news