RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to characterize and compare risk behaviors between motorcyclists and motor vehicle drivers who were involved in accidents and required hospitalization. The study focused on patients who were recently involved in motorcycle collisions (MCCs) and motor vehicle collisions (MVCs). METHODS: We identified 63 patients involved in MCCs and 39 patients involved in MVCs who were admitted to our level-1 trauma center from April 2014 to September 2015. These 102 patients completed a questionnaire designed to evaluate risky driving behaviors. Pearson's chi-squared tests and unpaired two-tailed t-tests were used to evaluate categorical and normally distributed continuous variables, respectively. Multivariable linear regression was used to analyze predictors of risk behavior. Significance was set at p < 0.05. RESULTS: When compared to patients involved in an MCC, patients involved in MVCs were more likely to be female (p = 0.007), drive more frequently (p < 0.001), and never perceive the risk of an accident (p = 0.036). MVC patients were more likely to have admitted to substance use on the day of the accident (p = 0.030), historically drive under the influence of drugs (p = 0.031), drive while tired (p < 0.001), drive while text messaging (p < 0.001), and speed while overtaking vehicles (p = 0.011). Overall, MVC patients engaged in more risk behaviors (3.3 ± 1.3 vs. 2.0 ± 1.5; p < 0.001) and were more likely to engage in multiple risk behaviors (p < 0.001). MVCs were associated with increased risk behavior, even after controlling for protective behaviors, driving history, and demographics (p = 0.045). CONCLUSIONS: Within our cohort of trauma patients at our institution, motor vehicle drivers were more likely than motorcyclists to engage in any one risk behavior and engage in a higher number of risk behaviors. In addition, motor vehicle drivers perceived their risk of a potential accident as lower than riding a motorcycle. Education initiatives should focus on motor vehicle driver safety interventions that reduce risk behaviors.
RESUMEN
Proactive control allows us to maneuver a changing environment and individuals are distinct in how they anticipate and approach such changes. Here, we examined how individual differences in personality traits influence cerebral responses to conflict anticipation, a critical process of proactive control. We explored this issue in an fMRI study of the stop signal task, in which the probability of stop signal - p(Stop) - was computed trial by trial with a Bayesian model. Higher p(Stop) is associated with prolonged go trial reaction time, indicating conflict anticipation and proactive control of motor response. Regional brain activations to conflict anticipation were correlated to novelty seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), reward dependence, as assessed by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire, with age and gender as covariates, in a whole-brain linear regression. Results showed that increased anticipation of the stop signal is associated with activations in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules (IPL), right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC), middle frontal gyrus (MFG), anterior pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and bilateral thalamus, with men showing greater activation in the IPL than women. NS correlated negatively to activity in the anterior pre-SMA, right IPL, and MFG/lOFC, and HA correlated negatively to activity in the thalamus during conflict anticipation. In addition, the negative association between NS and MFG/lOFC activity was significant in men but not in women. Thus, NS and HA traits are associated with reduced mobilization of cognitive control circuits when enhanced behavioral control is necessary. The findings from this exploratory study characterize the influence of NS and HA on proactive control and provide preliminary evidence for gender differences in these associations.
