Review What Do We Know about Spatial Navigation, and What Else Could Model-Based fMRI Tell Us? Tyson, A.L. (2013) EJBM

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What Do We Know about Spatial Navigation, and What Else Could Model-Based fMRI Tell Us?

Spatial navigation, or the ability to remember and navigate environments, is an important skill for humans and animals.

It has inspired a great deal of research, including neuroimaging studies of humans and single-unit recordings of animals.

Recent advances in computational modeling have enabled spatial navigation in humans and animals to be investigated in a more precise and detailed manner.

More specifically, computational models allow us to estimate theoretical parameters associated with spatial navigation, and model-based fMRI can be used to investigate the neural correlates of these parameters.

This review addresses the literature on spatial navigation beginning with reviewing lesion and animal studies of spatial cognition.

Imaging studies of spatial memory and navigation in humans, including structural imaging, and more complex functional imaging studies involving virtual reality are then discussed.

Particular emphasis is placed on computational studies of behavior involving reinforcement learning models and model-based fMRI.

Finally, the advantages of model-based fMRI for investigating the neural basis of spatial navigation in humans are discussed

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Recommended citation:
Tyson, A. L. (2013).
"What do we know about spatial navigation, and what else could model-based fMRI tell us?"
Einstein J. Biol. Med. v29 p32.
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Adam Tyson, Neuroscientist and software developer

MSc Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences,
University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom

Head Research Engineer
and Head of the Neuroinformatics Unit
at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit

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EDIT: removed quote boxes

 

[bicentennial]

The authors found that:

anterior MTL (anterior hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and anterior parahippocampal cortex) was active only during the initial phase of navigation, involving self-localization and planning routes (as reported by the participants)

and the posterior MTL (posterior hippocampal and posterior parahippocampal cortex) was active throughout navigation, presumably corresponding to processing spatial information relating to the subjects’ current position within the environment.

Using a similar but much more detailed method than Xu et al. (2010), Spiers and Maguire (2006) sought to investigate the neural activity corresponding to more-detailed aspects of navigation as their subjects (taxi drivers) drove around London in response to requests from customers.

After the subjects finished the task and left the scanner, they were ....

 

[Peter T]

I am not sure if this relates to this thread or not, but I sometime get what I call ‘jamais vu’, where I lose my spatial map of the world and any sense of direction. It would happen more frequently when I was still working and driving more often, I would suddenly lose any idea of where I was and any idea of how to get where I wanted to go. It could last for a couple of minutes or at the worst several hours. It would usually happen when I was driving home so when I was more tired. Sometimes I could compensate by using remembered facts, such as ‘I turn right at the phone box’, and just have to hope that the phone box I was seeing was the correct one. (With satnav it is less of an issue, as I can now just set my destination and rely on the instructions if my brain gets lost on familiar ground.)

When I was still able to walk about the village it occasionally happened, but usually I could rely on remembered facts, such as ‘the shop is next to the church’ and what I could see, such as I can see the church spire so I just need to walk towards the church and hope I then regain my sense of direction or see the shop.

It does happen in my house when I am in much more severe phases. For example forgetting how to get from my bed to the toilet. I leave all the doors on the landing open and look in each room till I can see the toilet. Fortunately it is not a large landing.

I struggled with the poll options as they seem to be confusing information processing load with attention span with distractibility with Visio spatial mapping with perceptual issues.

NB I am much less steady on my feet on unfamiliar terrain, so I use a walking stick when not at home even on level ground, though at home I don’t need one even on uneven terrain in the garden.

 

[Peter T]

I wonder if it would be better at this stages to ask people to describe any relevant experiences before creating a list of potential symptoms to use as a poll.