Influences of age, mental workload, and flight experience on cognitive performance and prefrontal activity in private pilots: a fNIRS study

Causse, Mickaël; Chua, Zarrin K.; Rémy, Florence · 2019 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44082-w

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Summary

This study investigates how age, mental workload, and flight experience influence cognitive performance and prefrontal neural activity in private pilots, a population increasingly relevant to aviation safety due to the aging demographic of pilots. The research aims to test predictions from the HAROLD and CRUNCH models of cognitive aging, which propose that older adults may compensate for age-related decline through increased neural recruitment at low task loads but reach a "resource ceiling" at high loads, leading to under-activation and performance deficits. To address this, 61 private pilots were divided into young, middle-aged, and older groups and performed two executive function tasks from the CANTAB battery: Spatial Working Memory (SWM) and One Touch Stockings of Cambridge (OTS). Task difficulty was manipulated from low to very high levels, exceeding those typically used in previous aging studies. Prefrontal cortical activity was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), specifically tracking oxyhemoglobin (HbO2) concentration changes. The results indicated that task difficulty significantly impacted performance and neural activity across all age groups. In the SWM task, error rates increased with difficulty for all pilots. While performance was equivalent among age groups at low and moderate difficulty levels (up to 8 boxes), older pilots committed significantly more errors than younger and middle-aged pilots at the highest difficulty levels (10 and 12 boxes). Correspondingly, fNIRS data revealed that while younger and middle-aged pilots showed a continuous increase in left prefrontal HbO2 activity as difficulty increased, older pilots exhibited a plateau in activity between the 10- and 12-box conditions. This plateau suggests that older pilots reached a neural resource ceiling, resulting in under-activation relative to younger pilots at the highest load. In the OTS task, older pilots also required more attempts than younger pilots, but no significant age-related differences in prefrontal activity were observed. Notably, older pilots with extensive flight experience (>1700 hours) demonstrated better preserved SWM performance at the highest difficulty level compared to less experienced older pilots, although this did not translate to significantly higher prefrontal activation. These findings support the CRUNCH model, which predicts a resource ceiling in older adults at high task demands, but do not support the HAROLD model, as no significant bilateral over-recruitment was observed in older pilots at low loads. The absence of age-related differences in neural activity at low-to-moderate loads suggests that pilots, as a selected group with high spatial skills and education, may maintain executive function better than the general population. The study concludes that while age-related cognitive decline in pilots emerges only at very high cognitive loads, extensive piloting experience may act as a protective factor, preserving spatial working memory performance. These insights are critical for assessing aviation risks in older pilots and understanding the potential cognitive benefits of lifelong professional expertise.

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• neuro workload indices