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Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task

Previous studies have showed that spatial memory declines with age but have not clarified the relevance of different landmark cues for specifying heading directions among different age groups. This study examined differences between younger, middle-aged and older adults in route learning and memory...

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Autores principales: Zhong, Jimmy Y., Moffat, Scott D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4882336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27303290
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00122
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author Zhong, Jimmy Y.
Moffat, Scott D.
author_facet Zhong, Jimmy Y.
Moffat, Scott D.
author_sort Zhong, Jimmy Y.
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have showed that spatial memory declines with age but have not clarified the relevance of different landmark cues for specifying heading directions among different age groups. This study examined differences between younger, middle-aged and older adults in route learning and memory tasks after they navigated a virtual maze that contained: (a) critical landmarks that were located at decision points (i.e., intersections) and (b) non-critical landmarks that were located at non-decision points (i.e., the sides of the route). Participants were given a recognition memory test for critical and non-critical landmarks and also given a landmark-direction associative learning task. Compared to younger adults, older adults committed more navigation errors during route learning and were poorer at associating the correct heading directions with both critical and non-critical landmarks. Notably, older adults exhibited a landmark-direction associative memory deficit at decision points; this was the first finding to show that an associative memory deficit exist among older adults in a navigational context for landmarks that are pertinent for reaching a goal, and suggest that older adults may expend more cognitive resources on the encoding of landmark/object features than on the binding of landmark and directional information. This study is also the first to show that older adults did not have a tendency to process non-critical landmarks, which were regarded as distractors/irrelevant cues for specifying the directions to reach the goal, to an equivalent or larger extent than younger adults. We explain this finding in view of the low number of non-critical cues in our virtual maze (relative to a real-world urban environment) that might not have evoked older adults’ usual tendency toward processing or encoding distractors. We explain the age differences in navigational and cognitive performance with regards to functional and structural changes in the hippocampus and parahippocampus, and recommend further investigations into the functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus for a better understanding of the landmark-direction associative learning among the elderly. Finally, it is hoped that the current behavioral findings will facilitate efforts to identify the neural markers of Alzheimer’s disease, a disease that commonly involves navigational deficits.
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spelling pubmed-48823362016-06-14 Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task Zhong, Jimmy Y. Moffat, Scott D. Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience Previous studies have showed that spatial memory declines with age but have not clarified the relevance of different landmark cues for specifying heading directions among different age groups. This study examined differences between younger, middle-aged and older adults in route learning and memory tasks after they navigated a virtual maze that contained: (a) critical landmarks that were located at decision points (i.e., intersections) and (b) non-critical landmarks that were located at non-decision points (i.e., the sides of the route). Participants were given a recognition memory test for critical and non-critical landmarks and also given a landmark-direction associative learning task. Compared to younger adults, older adults committed more navigation errors during route learning and were poorer at associating the correct heading directions with both critical and non-critical landmarks. Notably, older adults exhibited a landmark-direction associative memory deficit at decision points; this was the first finding to show that an associative memory deficit exist among older adults in a navigational context for landmarks that are pertinent for reaching a goal, and suggest that older adults may expend more cognitive resources on the encoding of landmark/object features than on the binding of landmark and directional information. This study is also the first to show that older adults did not have a tendency to process non-critical landmarks, which were regarded as distractors/irrelevant cues for specifying the directions to reach the goal, to an equivalent or larger extent than younger adults. We explain this finding in view of the low number of non-critical cues in our virtual maze (relative to a real-world urban environment) that might not have evoked older adults’ usual tendency toward processing or encoding distractors. We explain the age differences in navigational and cognitive performance with regards to functional and structural changes in the hippocampus and parahippocampus, and recommend further investigations into the functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus for a better understanding of the landmark-direction associative learning among the elderly. Finally, it is hoped that the current behavioral findings will facilitate efforts to identify the neural markers of Alzheimer’s disease, a disease that commonly involves navigational deficits. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4882336/ /pubmed/27303290 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00122 Text en Copyright © 2016 Zhong and Moffat. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Zhong, Jimmy Y.
Moffat, Scott D.
Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title_full Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title_fullStr Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title_full_unstemmed Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title_short Age-Related Differences in Associative Learning of Landmarks and Heading Directions in a Virtual Navigation Task
title_sort age-related differences in associative learning of landmarks and heading directions in a virtual navigation task
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4882336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27303290
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00122
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