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The Neuroscience of Driving: difficult to learn, practise makes it easy
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| José Luiz de Oliveira, Psychiatrist MD, former Psychiatrist Clinic Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Mogi das Cruzes |
Neuroscience explains
Even actvities that today are taken for granted by most of us, like walking, ride a bike, drive, race or even play an instrument are a complex and long motor program composed of several different actions that need to be triggered at the right time and the right order. All these learning mechanisms are dependent of two structures: the cerebral cortex and the basal nuclei. Basal nuclei is the name given to several hemispheric nuclei pairs that sit below the thalamus and includes the putamen, the caudate nucleus, the globus pallidus, the subthalamic nucleus and the substantia nigra. The cerebral cortex is the external layer of the predominant part of the brain, made of gyri and convolutions.
So to learn how to drive our systems select the right action at the right time through the integration of the cortex motor regions and the basal nuclei. This integration between the two structures still requires the supervision of other cortical structures that are aiming at each detail of what is being learned. This is the reason why the learner has to pay attention to what he is doing. Since our attention span is limited, every time we are learning something new such as driving it requires a huge cognitive effort.
By repeting the task the basal nuclei will use the information of what is right and what is wrong to facilitate these elementar motor impulses passing to the cortex, chaining them in the right order. As this chaining is repeated it creates more complete programs and elementar attitudes become automatic, requiring less cortical supervision, therefore less attention. So this group of actions becomes more fluid and natural. With time and constant or regular practice of the activity the motor cortex and the basal nuclei are able to execute complex and complete motor programs that allow the learner to change gears on the car with the rest of the cortex available to other tasks, since it does not have to supervise the interaction between the cortex and the basal nuclei. This allows the experienced driver to have a fun conversation with his travel companions.
And this is why driving a car becomes an automated task and if you take the appropriate measures you can turn it into a source of satisfaction.
