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A 'landmark' study on the neural basis of navigation

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 572–574 (2004)Cite this article

How does the brain learn the relevance of landmarks at key decision points? An imaging study now shows that the parahippocampal gyrus responds to the navigational relevance of landmarks, even those that were not remembered.

There is scarcely any place on earth where we humans have not stepped. As a species, navigation is part of our nature and has been crucial to our adaptation and survival. Even now, a sizeable chunk of our day is spent trying to get to from place to place, whether to work, home, school or the store. We have all experienced the annoyance of taking the wrong route, leading at best to wasted time and at worst to dangerous situations. To avoid becoming lost in the wrong part of town, objects along a route must quickly be identified and stored in memory as landmarks to later guide the traveller. Where a path divides, we must make a decision, and a mistake here could be particularly costly. Therefore, learning the relevance of landmarks at decision points would seem to be crucial.

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Figure 1: When exploring a new environment, although we might consciously pay attention to lots of interesting landmarks, the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) is more discerning, and signals only those landmarks that have particular use in aiding navigation.

Debbie Maizels

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3BG, UK

    Hugo J Spiers & Eleanor A Maguire

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  1. Hugo J Spiers
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  2. Eleanor A Maguire
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Spiers, H., Maguire, E. A 'landmark' study on the neural basis of navigation. Nat Neurosci 7, 572–574 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0604-572

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