Human spatial navigation deficits after traumatic brain injury shown in the arena maze, a virtual Morris water maze

Abstract

Objective: Survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) often have spatial navigation deficits. This study examined such deficits and conducted a detailed analysis of navigational behaviour in a virtual environment.Design: TBI survivors were tested in a computer simulation of the Morris water maze task that required them to find and remember the location of an invisible platform that was always in the same location. A follow-up questionnaire assessed everyday spatial ability. Method: Fourteen survivors of moderate-to-severe TBI were compared to 12 non-injured participants. Results: TBI survivors navigated to a visible platform but could not learn the location of the invisible platform. The difference between TBI survivors and uninjured participants was best indicated by two new dependent variables, path efficacy and spatial scores. Conclusion: This study confirms the capacity of virtual environments to reveal spatial navigation deficits after TBI and establishes the best way to identify such deficits.

External Cue Effects on Memory for Spatial Location within a Rotated Task Field

“…Virtual environments, such as computer-generated navigation tasks, might be a useful tool to investigate this problem, and have already been indicated to be increasingly popular to study place learning and memory more generally (e.g., Jacobs, Laurance & Thomas, 1997;Laurance, Learmonth, Nadel, & Jacobs, 2003;Maguire, Frith, Burgess, Donnett, & O'Keefe, 1998;Moffat & Resnick, 2002;Skelton, Bukach, Laurance, Thomas, & Jacobs et al, 2000;Skelton, Ross, Nerad, & Livingstone, 2006). The obvious advantages of this approach include that one can freely design environments according to study requirements, avoid of the large costs in terms of effort, logistics, and control associated with studying behavior in vista space or large real environments, and precisely track participants' movements in the environment.…”

A Review of Indoor Localization Technologies: towards Navigational Assistance for Topographical Disorientation

“…Aguirre and D'Esposito [3] provide a well-accepted taxonomy of TD, arguing that difficulties in wayfinding may arise as a result of the combination of different cognitive impairments. For example, it is well recognized that TD and spatial navigation deficits are common sequelae of brain injury [87,74]. Individuals living with post-traumatic effects of brain injury are oftentimes faced with symptoms such as weak visual scanning skills, or deficits in complex attention, prospective memory or sequential processing [47].…”

TT-301 Inhibits Microglial Activation and Improves Outcome after Central Nervous System Injury in Adult Mice

“…24,25 Recent reports of spatial navigation deficits of TBI survivors in a virtual water maze support the validity of MWM as a TBI outcome measure for learning and memory. 26 TT-301-mediated improvements in these clinically meaningful measures of functional outcome make this strategy attractive for clinical translation, especially when coupled with the sustained benefit seen with TT-301 administration up to 6 h following trauma.…”