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The ability to maintain a sense of direction and location while moving about in the environment is one of the most fundamental cognitive functions. We rely on spatial cognitive processes for finding our way in complex environments, planning routes to distant locations and returning to our car after a walk in a new city. When lesions to the brain or age-related changes impair our navigational abilities, we often experience devastating effects on our everyday lives. |
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In the Space and Ageing laboratory, we investigate how the human brain forms spatial memories from multisensory experiences and how this information is used during spatial planning and decision making. In addition, we work on age-related changes in spatial information processing, which can serve as a generic model for the neural mechanisms that underlie memory decline in other domains such as episodic memory. To achieve these goals, we use a multipronged methodological approach – please see the Research pages for further details. # # NEWS # # Special Issue of Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience Elderly people often report substantial declines in navigational abilities, for example problems with finding one's way in complex environments or with returning to the car after a trip to the supermarket. A detailed understanding of the mechanisms that mediate age-related navigational impairments could help understand general mechanisms of cognitive ageing and is of particular importance for addressing the deleterious consequences on everyday life such as restricted mobility and reduced social participation. To review the state of the art in the field and to stimulate novel reserach in this frontier area, we are hosting a special issue of Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, entitled 'Spatial memory -- a unique window into healthy and pathological ageing', which aims to bring together animal, human, and computational studies. PhD student Sarah Bates wins Poster prize At the 4th Annual Research Day of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, our own Sarah Bates won the first prize in the poster competition. Her poster "Ageing and Cue Integration during Navigation" showed conclusive evidence that healthy elderly people are able to integrate different spatial cues in a statistically optimal fashion, despite showing impairments when only one cue was available. Congratulations Sarah! It’s not just sight alone We have provided the first evidence that the human brain processes spatial information independently from the way it was encoded. Using fMRI and models of indoor environments, our most recent study, published in Current Biology, showed that activity in the parahippocampal place area - a region known to compute the spatial layout of scenes – could be driven both by visual and haptic information. Importantly, the haptic findings cannot be explained by visual imagery, because reliable PPA activation was also observed in blind participants. These findings have important implications for theories of spatial information processing in the human brain and could aid the design of devices for sensory substitution. You can find the paper here and a preview by Prof. Russell Epstein from the University of Pennsylvania here. |
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Recent Publications Harris M. A. & Wolbers T. Ageing Effects on Path Integration and Landmark Navigation. Hippocampus (in press) Holzschneider K, Wolbers T, Röder B & Hötting K. (2012). Cardiovascular fitness modulates brain activation associated with spatial learning. NeuroImage Wutte M.G.; Smith M.T.; Flanagin V. & Wolbers T. (2011). Physiological signal variability in hMT+ reflects performance on a direction discrimination task. Front. Psychology 2(185) |