title: Environmental layout complexity affects neural activity during navigation in humans.
abstract: Navigating large-scale surroundings is a fundamental ability. In humans, it is commonly assumed that navigational performance is affected by individual differences, such as age, sex, and cognitive strategies adopted for orientation. We recently showed that the layout of the environment itself also influences how well people are able to find their way within it, yet it remains unclear whether differences in environmental complexity are associated with changes in brain activity during navigation. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the brain responds to a change in environmental complexity by asking participants to perform a navigation task in two large-scale virtual environments that differed solely in interconnection density, a measure of complexity defined as the average number of directional choices at decision points. The results showed that navigation in the simpler, less interconnected environment was faster and more accurate relative to the complex environment, and such performance was associated with increased activity in a number of brain areas (i.e. precuneus, retrosplenial cortex, and hippocampus) known to be involved in mental imagery, navigation, and memory. These findings provide novel evidence that environmental complexity not only affects navigational behaviour, but also modulates activity in brain regions that are important for successful orientation and navigation.
authors.affiliation: NeuroLab, Department of Psychology, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Admin 062, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Slone
authors.affiliation: NeuroLab, Department of Psychology, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Admin 062, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada.
authors.forename: Ford
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Burles
authors.affiliation: NeuroLab, Department of Psychology, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Admin 062, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Iaria
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D065854:Spatial Navigation
keywords: environmental neuroscience; functional magnetic resonance imaging; navigation; spatial memory; virtual environments