title: The topographical N170: electrophysiological evidence of a neural mechanism for human spatial navigation.
abstract: We recently demonstrated that the latency of a component of the event-related brain potential, the topographical N170 (NT170), is sensitive to the spatial location of reward-related stimuli in a virtual maze environment, occurring earlier for rewards found following rightward turns compared to leftward turns. We suggested that this NT170 latency effect may result from phase reset of an ongoing theta rhythm by a parahippocampal system for spatial navigation. Here we tested several predictions that follow from this proposal, namely, that the effect is observed only when the rewards are presented in a spatial environment, that it is sensitive to individual differences in spatial ability, that it is localizable to the right parahippocampal region, and that it is consistent with partial phase resetting of an ongoing theta rhythm. These results hold promise for integrating ERP measures of spatial navigation with extensive animal, human, and computational literatures on parahippocampal function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Travis.E.Baker@gmail.com
authors.forename: Travis E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Clay B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Holroyd
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001676:Biofeedback, Psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Event-related brain potentials; Parahippocampus; Spatial navigation; Theta rhythm; Topographical N170