Homing by path integration in a mammal

Walking performance of vestibular-defective patients before and after unilateral vestibular neurotomy

“…The vestibular system plays a significant role in spatial memory for both whole-body angular [3,31] and linear [4,21] displacements. Altogether, the data point to the role of vestibular cues in the elaboration of an accurate internal representation of the environment, confirming more generally the role of the vestibular system for idiothetic navigation and route planning [32,33]. However, the role of the vestibular system in estimating distance has not been tested here.…”

The development of path integration: Combining estimations of distance and heading

“…distance and heading calculations from self-motion), and it may therefore be the case that children also have similar difficulties integrating intra-modal cues as much as they do multi-modal ones. In contrast, since idiothetic cues usually include information from vestibular sources (providing signals indicating balance and movement) and proprioceptive sources (providing signals indicating spatial position) (see Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 1980;, it seems equally tenable to argue that the integration of these cues is itself multi-modal process.…”

Vestibular stimulation enhances hippocampal long-term potentiation via activation of cholinergic septohippocampal cells

“…Previous studies suggested that vestibular and other sensory information are transmitted to and processed in the hippocampus to facilitate spatial navigation [55][56][57]. Vestibular inputs are necessary for path integration [58][59][60][61]. Passive rotation has been shown to modulate the activity of place cells [62,63] while bilateral vestibular inactivation or damage abolished location-specific firing of place cells [64,65].…”