Abstract
In the past 20 years, many studies in the cognitive neurosciences have analyzed human ability to navigate in recently learned and familiar environments by investigating the cognitive processes involved in successful navigation. In this study, we reviewed the main experimental paradigms and made a cognitive-oriented meta-analysis of fMRI studies of human navigation to underline the importance of the experimental designs and cognitive tasks used to assess navigational skills. We performed a general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of 66 fMRI experiments to identify the neural substrates underpinning general aspects of human navigation. Four individual ALE analyses were performed to identify the neural substrates of different experimental paradigms (i.e., familiar vs. recently learned environments) and different navigational strategies (allocentric vs. egocentric). Results of the general ALE analysis highlighted a wide network of areas with clusters in the occipital, parietal, frontal and temporal lobes, especially in the parahippocampal cortex. Familiar environments seem to be processed by an extended temporal-frontal network, whereas recently learned environments require activation in the parahippocampal cortex and the parietal and occipital lobes. Allocentric strategy is subtended by the same areas as egocentric strategy, but the latter elicits greater activation in the right precuneus, middle occipital lobe and angular gyrus. Our results suggest that different neural correlates are involved in recalling a well-learned or recently acquired environment and that different networks of areas subtend egocentric and allocentric strategies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11065-014-9247-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
In the past 20 years, an increasing number of studies in the cognitive neuroscience literature have analyzed human ability to navigate and orient in recently learned and familiar environments by investigating the cognitive processes involved in successful navigation
The main aims of the meta-analysis were the following: (i) to find converging evidence of a specific and dedicated network for spatial navigation in the human brain, to overcome the discrepancies found in neuroimaging studies of human navigation; (ii) to test the hypothesis that welllearned, familiar environments and recently learned environments are processed by different neural substrates; and (iii) to assess the degree of overlap between the brain networks that mediate the egocentric and allocentric strategies employed in navigation
In the general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analysis, we found 25 clusters in both the right and left hemispheres (Fig. 1a) (Detailed information about cluster are reported in supplementary materials, table S1)
Summary
In the past 20 years, an increasing number of studies in the cognitive neuroscience literature have analyzed human ability to navigate and orient in recently learned and familiar environments by investigating the cognitive processes involved in successful navigation. The latter include the ability to retain the spatial layout of an environment, find a shortcut between two locations or create an interconnected network among different paths. The data reported in these studies are often contrasting, perhaps because of differences in methods and in the specific cognitive processes investigated in the experimental paradigms In this light, a methodological review with a metaanalytic approach could be useful to bridge the gap in the literature regarding the neural correlates of human navigation.
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