Development & Navigation - NAVI

Spatial Navigation across the lifespan

Theoretical background

Spatial navigation i.e., finding ways in a particular environment or navigating to novel destinations, is one key cognitive function individuals of different ages need to master in everyday life. Whereas complex allocentric representations of spatial boundaries and layouts are supported by the hippocampus, egocentric stimulus-response associations between spatial landmarks and cue locations are mainly subserved by the striatum. Both normal aging and dopamine dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease affect the prioritization of navigation strategies. In contrast to young adults, healthy older adults and Parkinson’s disease patients prioritized striatal cue-based over hippocampal boundary-related navigation strategies [1-3]. Furthermore, dopaminergic medication in Parkinson’s disease patients showed differential beneficial effects on striatal- versus hippocampal-dependent spatial memory [3].

This project is associated with the DFG Collaborative Research Centre CRC940 (www.sfb940.de) at the TU Dresden (funding period 1, project C4; 2012-2016) and is partly funded by the Roland-Ernst Foundation (deep brain stimulation project; 2014-2016) (www.roland-ernst-stiftung.de).

Project aims

• To develop virtual-realty based tasks and test batteries to investigate spatial memory and decision making functions (collaboration with BMBF funded Consortium TRAINSTIM).
• To investigate hippocampal- and striatal-dependent spatial learning and memory across the lifespan (6-80 years) and in model diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.
• To investigate effects of interventions such as dopamine pharmacology and non-invasive brain stimulation (collaboration with BMBF funded TRAINSTIM).

Prrincipal investigator and Team

Prof. Shu-Chen Li, Ph.D
Dr. Franka Thurm
Dr. Susanne Passow
Dr. Nicolas Schuck (associated researcher)

selected project-relevant Publications

• Schuck, N.W., Doeller, C.F., Polk, T.A., Lindenberger, U., & Li, S.-C. (2015). Human aging alters the neural computation and representation of space. Neuroimage, 117, 141-150. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.05.031
• Schuck N.W., Doeller C.F., Schjeide B.M., Schröder J., Frensch P.A., Bertram L. and Li S.-C. (2013). Aging and KIBRA/WWC1 genotype affect spatial memory processes in a virtual navigation task. Hippocampus, 23(10),  919-930. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22148
• Thurm, F., Schuck, N.W., Fauser, M., Doeller, C.F., Stankevich, Y., Evens, R., Riedel, O., Storch, A., Lueken, U., & Li, S.-C. (2016). Dopamine modulation of spatial memory in Parkinson’s disease. Neurobiology of Aging, 38, 93-103. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2015.10.019