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A Neural Compass in the Human Brain during Naturalistic Virtual Navigation
Zhengang Lu1,2, Joshua B Julian3,4, Geoffrey K Aguirre5
1Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 zhengang.lu@nyu.edu epstein@psych.upenn.edu.
Summary
Humans maintain a sense of direction using specific brain regions, including the retrosplenial complex. This neural compass supports wayfinding by representing heading relative to the environment's main axis during navigation.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Human Navigation
Background:
- Wayfinding relies on maintaining a consistent facing direction (FD).
- Head direction cells in rodents suggest a neural compass, but human mechanisms during dynamic navigation are unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify brain regions supporting human FD representation during naturalistic navigation.
- To investigate how the brain maintains a sense of direction in a dynamic virtual environment.
Main Methods:
- fMRI data collected from human participants navigating a virtual city.
- Encoding model analyses to identify brain activity tuned to facing direction.
- Examined consistency of directional tuning across different environmental conditions.
Main Results:
- Voxel clusters in the posterior-medial cortex (retrosplenial complex) and superior parietal lobule showed reliable FD tuning.
- Directional tuning remained consistent across different city versions, locations, and task phases.
- Brain regions represent FD relative to the environment's principal axis.
Conclusions:
- The human brain, particularly the retrosplenial complex, possesses mechanisms for maintaining a sense of direction.
- These brain regions support dynamic, naturalistic navigation by representing heading relative to environmental structure.
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