In our first human participant study, we have developed a task in virtual reality to help assess navigational ability and overall cognitive function.
Spatial navigation is a behavioral paradigm that can provide insight on dependent brain structures such as the hippocampus, which creates the “cognitive map”.
In our task, participants will navigate semi-randomly generated paths in virtual reality, and be asked to remember their start position and the positions of distant landmarks.
Because the hippocampus, and spatial navigation in particular are heavily affected in the early stages of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), we hope that future work with this task will lead to the creation of a sensitive biomarker for the early signs of cognitive decline.
Our first participants will be performing the task in summer 2024 - for any questions regarding the project please contact Annie Kim, the supervising graduate student.
