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Updated: Aug 28, 2026
Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise
Published on: January 26, 2024
Virtual Reality-Based Orienteering Training Improves Spatial Memory in College Students with Operationally Defined
Yang Liu1, Heying Liu1, Pengyang Kang1
1Key Laboratory of Sports Learning Science, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China.
Background:
Developmental topographical disorientation (DTD)-like navigational difficulties can impair everyday orientation and spatial information processing.
Objective:
We examined whether 8-week virtual reality (VR) orienteering training improves performance on a laboratory spatial memory task in college students with operationally defined DTD-like navigational difficulties and examined task-related cortical changes.
Methods:
In a randomized controlled trial, 96 students were assigned to VR orienteering, VR exercise, or control groups (n = 32/group). The exercise groups trained twice weekly for 45 min for 8 weeks at moderate intensity (64-76% HRmax). Before and after the intervention, all participants completed a delayed visuospatial recognition task designed to assess spatial-memory-related processing, while functional near-infrared spectroscopy measured hemodynamic changes in prefrontal and sensorimotor cortices. The post-test session was conducted 48 h after the final scheduled session, with no immediate post-exercise assessment.
Results:
VR orienteering produced greater improvement in spatial-memory-task accuracy and reaction time than the other groups. After BH-FDR correction across eight ROIs, training-specific reductions in task-related activation were observed in the right primary motor cortex and left frontopolar area. Within the VR orienteering group, pre-to-post change in left orbitofrontal activation was negatively associated with change in spatial-memory-task accuracy, Pearson r(30) = -0.819, 95% CI [-0.908, -0.658], p < 0.001, R2 = 0.670; the association remained significant after eight-ROI BH-FDR correction (adjusted p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
VR orienteering improved performance on the laboratory spatial memory task and was accompanied by reduced task-related cortical recruitment. Greater reductions in L-OFC activation were linked to greater improvements in accuracy, identifying L-OFC activation change as a neural correlate of training-related spatial-memory improvement.
