For many of us, navigating the world seems like an impossible task without our smartphone.
But a new study suggests that humans are more adept at getting from A to B than we might have imagined.
Scientists have discovered that we have an “internal neural compass” in our brain that allows us to orient ourselves in our environment.
This compass – which takes the form of an electrical signal transmitted by nerve cells – tells us that we are about to head in a new direction.
What’s more, once we’ve reoriented, it lets us know we’re moving on a new path—east instead of north, for example.
The new study was carried out by researchers from the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
“We would describe the neural compass as a brain signal that is sent to many different regions of the brain”
“We would describe the neural compass as a brain signal that is sent to many different brain regions involved in navigation,” said study author Dr. Benjamin J. Griffiths of the University of Birmingham.
“The brain signal updates these brain regions about where we are heading in an environment, and this helps update our navigational goals as we move,” he added.
“When we turn a street corner, the brain’s neural compass signal tells the brain regions that help us navigate about the turn and allows us to update our direction (for example, to move down the new street). Without a compass, people would probably had a ‘substantial breakdown of our ability to navigate,'” said Dr. Benjamin J. Griffiths.
For the study, Dr Griffiths and his colleagues recruited 52 healthy participants for a series of motion tracking experiments while their brain activity was recorded.
For this, they used electroencephalography (EEG) – a method of recording the electrical activity of the brain that involves electrodes placed along the scalp.
These allowed the researchers to monitor the participants’ brain signals as they moved their heads to orient according to cues on different monitors.
They also analyzed signals from 10 participants who were already undergoing brain monitoring for conditions such as epilepsy.
All tasks required participants to move their head, or sometimes only their eyes.
Compass is “always on”
The researchers were able to identify the finely tuned directional compass signal that could be detected even before physical changes in head direction among the participants.
“We found that the compass is ‘always on,’ but the signals tend to be stronger just before we move. This may be a warning to other brain regions that a change in direction is coming,” said Dr. Griffiths.
Before this study, scientists weren’t quite sure how people manage to orient themselves and navigate an environment.
“Previous work in rodents and birds has found a neural compass like the one we observed,” Dr Griffiths added.
“But humans are much more visual than these species (meaning we tend to explore the world more with our eyes than by walking through it). However, our results suggest that we have a compass similar to that of rodents and birds, but we complement it a little and with the eyes”, added the specialist.
The results have implications for understanding diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, where navigation and orientation are often impaired.
In future work, the researchers plan to investigate how the brain navigates through time to see if a similar activity is responsible for memory.
The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, according to the Daily Mail.
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