A study by researchers from University College London has figured out why some people are better at navigating than others. Apparently, a part of the brain is responsible.
Published in the journal Current Biology, the study showed that the entorhinal region of the brain, which is in-charge of identifying which direction a person is facing, is also tasked with signaling the direction a person should be facing, pointing where they should go to reach their destination. As the signal guides a person's path, how strong it is also affects how well of a navigator a person is.
Researchers were able to essentially isolate where a person's "sense of direction" is coming from, working out a way to measure it with the help of an fMRI or functional magnetic resonance imaging. This "homing signal" has been believed to exist for years but only know was it made tangible in the brain's entorhinal region.
Study lead Dr. Hugo Spiers from the Experimental Psychology Department of UCL shared that studies before were carried out on cab drivers in London, noting that the first thing a driver would do when working out a route was to figure out the direction they should be heading in. With the current study, researchers now know which part of the brain is responsible for helping cab drivers pick their routes.
He also added that the next course of investigation will have to focus on more complex tasks involving navigation. However, Spiers already expects that the differences in activities in the entorhinal region will have a more profound effect on more difficult tasks.
"Our results provide evidence to support the idea that your internal ‘compass' readjusts as you move through the environment," said Dr. Martin Chadwick, the study's lead author, adding if a person gets lost, for instance, it means that the brain was not able to keep up with shifts in direction.
The entorhinal region is also one of the first areas of the brain that Alzheimer's disease affects. The study's findings may also be helpful in explaining why patients usually get lost during the disease's early stages. In line with that, researchers are hoping to devise an easy simulation task that may be used for aiding the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's as well as tracking its progress.
Aside from Chadwick and Spiers, other authors for the study include: Amy Jolly, Demis Hassabis and Doran Amos. This research received funding support from the Wellcome Trust.
