scholarly journals Effects of Orientation Change during Environmental Learning on Age-Related Difference in Spatial Memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naohide Yamamoto ◽  
Michael J. Fox ◽  
Ellen Boys ◽  
Jodi Ord
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Spatial Learning ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Environmental Learning ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Single Orientation

AbstractIt has been suggested that older adults suffer a greater degree of decline in environmental learning when navigating in an environment than when reading a map of the environment. However, the two types of spatial learning differ not only in perspectives (i.e., navigation is done with a ground-level perspective; a map is read from an aerial perspective) but also in orientations (i.e., orientations vary during navigation; spatial information is drawn from a single orientation in a map), making it unclear which factor critically affects older adults’ spatial learning. The present study addressed this issue by having younger and older participants learn the layout of a large-scale environment through an aerial movie that contained changes in orientations from which the environment was depicted. Results showed that older participants’ memories for the environmental layout were as distorted as those created through a ground-level movie (which involved the same orientation changes), whereas they formed more accurate memories through another aerial movie in which an orientation was fixed. By contrast, younger participants learned the environment equally well from the three movies. Taken together, these findings suggest that there is age-related alteration specifically in the ability to process multiple orientations of an environment while encoding its layout in memory. It is inferred that this alteration stems from functional deterioration of the medial temporal lobe, and possibly that of posterior cingulate areas as well (e.g., the retrosplenial cortex), in late adulthood.

scholarly journals Differential brain activity in visuo-perceptual regions during landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ramanoël ◽  
Marion Durteste ◽  
Marcia Bécu ◽  
Christophe Habas ◽  
Angelo Arleo
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Cortical Projection ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOlder adults exhibit prominent impairments in their capacity to navigate, reorient in unfamiliar environments or update their path when faced with obstacles. This decline in navigational capabilities has traditionally been ascribed to memory impairments and dysexecutive function whereas the impact of visual aging has often been overlooked. The ability to perceive visuo-spatial information such as salient landmarks is essential to navigate in space efficiently. To date, the functional and neurobiological factors underpinning landmark processing in aging remain insufficiently characterized. To address this issue, this study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain activity associated with landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older participants. Twenty-five young adults (μ=25.4 years, σ=4.7; 7F) and twenty-one older adults (μ=73.0 years, σ=3.9; 10F) performed a virtual navigation task in the scanner in which they could only orient using salient landmarks. The underlying whole-brain patterns of activity as well as the functional roles of scene-selective regions, the parahippocampal place area (PPA), the occipital place area (OPA), and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) were analyzed. We found that older adults’ navigational abilities were diminished compared to young adults’ and that the two age groups relied on distinct navigational strategies to solve the task. Better performance during landmark-based navigation was found to be associated with increased neural activity in an extended neural network comprising several cortical and cerebellar regions. Direct comparisons between age groups further revealed that young participants had enhanced anterior temporal activity. In addition, young adults only were found to recruit occipital areas corresponding to the cortical projection of the central visual field during landmark-based navigation. The region-of-interest analysis revealed increased OPA activation in older adult participants. There were no significant between-group differences in PPA and RSC activations. These results hint at the possibility that aging diminishes fine-grained information processing in occipital and temporal regions thus hindering the capacity to use landmarks adequately for navigation. This work helps towards a better comprehension of the neural dynamics subtending landmark-based navigation and it provides new insights on the impact of age-related visuo-spatial processing changes on navigation capabilities.

scholarly journals Biases in object location estimation: the role of camera rotations and translation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladislava Segen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Spatial Memory ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Location Estimation ◽  
Object Location ◽  
Systematic Bias ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Object Locations ◽  
Age Related

The current study investigated a systematic bias in spatial memory in which people, following a perspective shift from encoding to recall, indicated the location of an object further to the direction of the shit. In Experiment 1, we documented this bias by asking participants to encode the position of an object in a virtual room and then indicate it from memory following a perspective shift induced by camera translation and rotation. In Experiment 2, we decoupled the influence of camera translations and camera rotations and examined also whether adding more information in the scene would reduce the bias. We also investigated the presence of age-related differences in the precision of object location estimates and the tendency to display the bias related to perspective shift. Overall, our results showed that camera translations led to greater systematic bias than camera rotations. Furthermore, the use of additional spatial information improved the precision with which object locations were estimated and reduced the bias associated with camera translation. Finally, we found that although older adults were as precise as younger participants when estimating object locations, they benefited less from additional spatial information and their responses were more biased in the direction of camera translations. We propose that accurate representation of camera translations requires more demanding mental computations than camera rotations, leading to greater uncertainty about the position of an object in memory. This uncertainty causes people to rely on an egocentric anchor thereby giving rise to the systematic bias in the direction of camera translation.

scholarly journals USING VR FOR NAVIGATION ASSESSMENT IN OLDER ADULTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S240-S240
Author(s):  
Scott Moffat
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Functional Independence ◽  
Spatial Strategies ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

Abstract There has been a long tradition of wayfinding and orienteering studies in humans but these have mostly neglected possible age-related differences in navigation. This field of inquiry is experiencing something of a resurgence of interest due to the development of VR technology which has brought the systematic study of large scale navigation into the laboratory and into the MRI scanning environment. Empirical studies to date identify navigation as an aspect of cognition that is vulnerable to the aging process. Functional and structural neuroimaging studies in humans suggest that age-related changes in the brain’s “navigation circuit” may underlie these behavioral age differences. Older adults also adopt unique spatial strategies and knowledge of these strategy preferences could enlighten both basic science research in spatial cognition and also inform the development of age-specific technological assistance that may extend functional independence of older adults into later life.

scholarly journals Age Moderates Perceived COVID-19 Disruption on Well-Being

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Knepple Carney ◽  
Allyson S Graf ◽  
Grace Hudson ◽  
Ellen Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Design And Methods

Abstract Background and Objectives It is not fully understood how large-scale events affect well-being. Older adults showed the highest levels of resilience following the September 11th (9/11) terrorist attacks, but during the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, there were no age-related differences in well-being. The current study examined the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) disruption on well-being throughout adulthood. Research Design and Methods Perceived stress and affect were examined in 166 community-dwelling adults (Mage = 35.65; SD = 15.53; range = 18–79) in relation to the perceived disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic to their lives. Results A significant moderation was found for age and COVID-19 disruption on perceived stress [F(5, 153) = 8.88, p < .05, R2 = .22] and negative affect [F(5, 154) = 4.91, p < .05, R2 = .14], but not for positive affect. For participants over 50, those who rated COVID-19 as a low or high disruption had similar scores on stress and negative affect, but with younger aged participants, perceiving high disruption corresponded with higher levels of stress and negative affect. Discussion and Implications Findings are consistent with the strength and vulnerability integration (SAVI) model, wherein older adults try to maintain positive emotional well-being, with middle-aged and older adults in the current study having experienced less negative impact on well-being. Middle-aged and older adults may be better able to regulate negative emotions from COVID-19 than younger adults. SAVI proposes a greater negative impact on older adults when they experience sustained stressors; as the challenges with COVID-19 continue, further data will need to be examined.

scholarly journals Age-related Differences in Brain Activity during True and False Memory Retrieval

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1390-1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Dennis ◽  
Hongkeun Kim ◽  
Roberto Cabeza
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Age Related

Compared to young adults, older adults show not only a reduction in true memories but also an increase in false memories. We investigated the neural bases of these age effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a false memory task that resembles the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Young and older participants were scanned during a word recognition task that included studied words and new words that were strongly associated with studied words (critical lures). During correct recognition of studied words (true memory), older adults showed weaker activity than young adults in the hippocampus but stronger activity than young adults in the retrosplenial cortex. The hippocampal reduction is consistent with age-related deficits in recollection, whereas the retrosplenial increase suggests compensatory recruitment of alternative recollection-related regions. During incorrect recognition of critical lures (false memory), older adults displayed stronger activity than young adults in the left lateral temporal cortex, a region involved in semantic processing and semantic gist. Taken together, the results suggest that older adults' deficits in true memories reflect a decline in recollection processes mediated by the hippocampus, whereas their increased tendency to have false memories reflects their reliance on semantic gist mediated by the lateral temporal cortex.

scholarly journals Hippocampal connectivity with retrosplenial cortex drives neocortical tau accumulation and memory function

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Ziontz ◽  
Jenna Adams ◽  
Theresa Harrison ◽  
Suzanne Baker ◽  
William Jagust
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Parietal Lobe ◽  
Memory Function ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Neural Connectivity ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Cognitively Normal

Abstract The mechanisms underlying accumulation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-related tau pathology outside of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in older adults are unknown but crucial to understanding cognitive decline. Neural connectivity has recently been implicated in the propagation of tau in humans, consistent with data from animal studies. Using resting state functional connectivity and tau PET imaging, we examined MTL structures involved in medial parietal tau deposition in cognitively normal older adults. Functional connectivity between retrosplenial cortex and hippocampus, but not entorhinal cortex, correlated with tau in medial parietal lobe. Further, hippocampal-retrosplenial connectivity strength modulated the correlation between MTL and medial parietal lobe tau, as well as between medial parietal tau and episodic memory. Medial parietal tau spread thus reflects patterns of neural connectivity that represent a critical step in the evolution of cognitive dysfunction in aging and AD.

The role of orientation flights on homing performance in honeybees

1999 ◽  
Vol 202 (12) ◽  
pp. 1655-1666 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. Capaldi ◽  
F.C. Dyer
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Insect Navigation ◽  
Homing Performance ◽  
Route Memory ◽  
Orientation Flight ◽  
Single Orientation ◽  
Orientation Flights

Honeybees have long served as a model organism for investigating insect navigation. Bees, like many other nesting animals, primarily use learned visual features of the environment to guide their movement between the nest and foraging sites. Although much is known about the spatial information encoded in memory by experienced bees, the development of large-scale spatial memory in naive bees is not clearly understood. Past studies suggest that learning occurs during orientation flights taken before the start of foraging. We investigated what honeybees learn during their initial experience in a new landscape by examining the homing of bees displaced after a single orientation flight lasting only 5–10 min. Homing ability was assessed using vanishing bearings and homing speed. At release sites with a view of the landmarks immediately surrounding the hive, ‘first-flight’ bees, tested after their very first orientation flight, had faster homing rates than ‘reorienting foragers’, which had previous experience in a different site prior to their orientation flight in the test landscape. First-flight bees also had faster homing rates from these sites than did ‘resident’ bees with full experience of the terrain. At distant sites, resident bees returned to the hive more rapidly than reorienting or first-flight bees; however, in some cases, the reorienting bees were as successful as the resident bees. Vanishing bearings indicated that all three types of bees were oriented homewards when in the vicinity of landmarks near the hive. When bees were released out of sight of these landmarks, hence forcing them to rely on a route memory, the ‘first-flight’ bees were confused, the ‘reorienting’ bees chose the homeward direction except at the most distant site and the ‘resident’ bees were consistently oriented homewards.

scholarly journals Virtual/Real Transfer in a Large-Scale Environment: Impact of Active Navigation as a Function of the Viewpoint Displacement Effect and Recall Tasks

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grégory Wallet ◽  
Hélène Sauzéon ◽  
Florian Larrue ◽  
Bernard N'Kaoua
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Learning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Sorting Task ◽  
Environment Impact ◽  
Displacement Effect ◽  
Egocentric Frame ◽  
Mapping Task ◽  
Navigation Mode ◽  
Better Than

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of navigation mode (passive versus active) on the virtual/real transfer of spatial learning, according to viewpoint displacement (ground: 1 m 75 versus aerial: 4 m) and as a function of the recall tasks used. We hypothesize that active navigation during learning can enhance performances when route strategy is favored by egocentric match between learning (ground-level viewpoint) and recall (egocentric frame-based tasks). Sixty-four subjects (32 men and 32 women) participated in the experiment. Spatial learning consisted of route learning in a virtual district (four conditions: passive/ground, passive/aerial, active/ground, or active/aerial), evaluated by three tasks:wayfinding,sketch-mapping,andpicture-sorting. In thewayfinding task, subjects who were assigned the ground-level viewpoint in the virtual environment (VE) performed better than those with the aerial-level viewpoint, especially in combination with active navigation. In thesketch-mapping task, aerial-level learning in the VE resulted in better performance than the ground-level condition, while active navigation was only beneficial in the ground-level condition. The best performance in thepicture-sorting taskwas obtained with the ground-level viewpoint, especially with active navigation. This study confirmed the expected results that the benefit of active navigation was linked with egocentric frame-based situations.

Knowing Where Things Are: Parahippocampal Involvement in Encoding Object Locations in Virtual Large-Scale Space

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Maguire ◽  
C. D. Frith ◽  
N. Burgess ◽  
J. G. Donnett ◽  
J. O'Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Scale Space ◽  
Parahippocampal Gyrus ◽  
Environmental Learning ◽  
Object Locations ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
The Right

The involvement of the medial temporal-lobe region in allocentric mapping of the environment has been observed in human lesion and functional imaging work. Cognitive models of environmental learning ascribe a key role to salient landmarks in representing large-scale space. In the present experiments we examined the neural substrates of the topographical memory acquisition process when environmental landmarks were more specifically identifiable. Using positron emission tomography (PET), we measured regional cerebral blood flow changes while normal subjects explored and learned in a virtual reality environment. One experiment involved an environment containing salient objects and textures that could be used to discriminate different rooms. Another experiment involved a plain empty environment in which rooms were distinguishable only by their shape. Learning in both cases activated a network of bilateral occipital, medial parietal, and occipito-temporal regions. The presence of salient objects and textures in an environment additionally resulted in increased activity in the right parahippocampal gyrus. This region was not activated during exploration of the empty environment. These findings suggest that encoding of salient objects into a representation of large-scale space is a critical factor in instigating parahippocampal involvement in topographical memory formation in humans and accords with previous studies implicating parahippocampal areas in the encoding of object location.

scholarly journals Age-related differences in structural and functional prefrontal networks during a logical reasoning task

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Ziaei ◽  
Mohammad Reza Bonyadi ◽  
David C. Reutens
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Functional Results ◽  
Logical Reasoning ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Belief Bias ◽  
Reasoning Task ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn logical reasoning, difficulties in inhibition of currently-held beliefs may lead to unwarranted conclusions, known as belief bias. Aging is associated with difficulties in inhibitory control, which may lead to deficits in inhibition of currently-held beliefs. No study to date, however, has investigated the underlying neural substrates of age-related differences in logical reasoning and the impact of belief load. The aim of the present study was to delineate age differences in brain activity during a syllogistic logical reasoning task while the believability load of logical inferences was manipulated. Twenty-nine, healthy, younger and thirty, healthy, older adults (males and females) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment in which they were asked to determine the logical validity of conclusions. Unlike younger adults, older adults engaged a large-scale network including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during conclusion stage. Our functional connectivity results suggest that while older adults engaged the ACC network to overcome their intuitive responses for believable inferences, the IFG network contributed to higher control over responses during both believable and unbelievable conditions. Our functional results were further supported by structure-function-behavior analyses indicating the importance of cingulum bundle and uncinate fasciculus integrity in rejection of believable statements. These novel findings lend evidence for age-related differences in belief bias, with potentially important implications for decision making where currently-held beliefs and given assumptions are in conflict.

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