NCS-FO: The Neural Basis of Human Spatial Navigation in Large-Scale Virtual Spaces with Vestibular Input

人们是如何在导航的过程中学习大型空间的，比如他们参观的新城镇和城市？解决这个问题带来了令人惊讶的障碍，例如难以优化实验测试和控制预先存在的知识的大规模空间。桌面虚拟现实提供了一种可能的方法来解决这个问题，尽管这种测试提供了一个不完整的全身沉浸式体验，即现实世界的导航。研究人员将开发一种与头戴式显示器相结合的二维跑步机，以允许在大规模虚拟空间中自由走动。该装置的成功开发具有重要的社会应用价值。例如，以丰富的身体为基础的线索进行预训练，有可能增加对现实世界环境的知识转移，这可能有助于训练个人，如急救人员和荒野环境中的导航。此外，该设备和拟议的实验将为人类空间导航的神经基础提供一个全新的理解，这是准确建模空间认知和理解为什么我们经常在参观新城市时迷路的基础。几乎所有关于空间导航神经基础的理论，主要是在自由导航的啮齿动物中发展起来的，都认为基于身体的线索对这一编码的重要性至关重要。然而，绝大多数对人类的研究都涉及桌面虚拟现实中的导航。将开发的新型设备将允许基于2d运动的VR导航，允许全方位的身体/头部旋转和移动。实验将确定1)基于身体的输入对人类空间导航的贡献，以及基于身体的VR导航如何增强对现实世界环境的后续知识2)大脑如何通过同时使用脑电图记录来编码空间距离3)大脑如何通过使用高分辨率功能磁共振成像（fMRI）建模底层多维大脑网络来编码环境中地标的相对方向。这些实验的结果对于测试空间导航模型和推进我们对我们使用视觉与基于身体的线索来表示空间环境的程度的理解非常重要，这是目前该领域一个重大争论的问题。

How do people learn large-scale spaces, like new towns and cities that they visit, as they navigate? Addressing this question poses surprising obstacles, such as the difficulty in optimizing large-scale spaces for experimental testing and controlling for pre-existing knowledge. Desktop virtual reality offers one possible way to address this question, although such testing offers an incomplete rendition of the full-body, immersive experience that is real-world navigation. Researchers will develop a 2-D treadmill coupled with a head-mounted display to allow free ambulation of large-scale virtual spaces. Successful development of this device has important societal applications. For example, pre-training with enriched body-based cues has the potential to increase knowledge transfer to real world environments, which could be helpful for training individuals such as first-responders and navigation in wilderness environments. Also, the device and proposed experiments will provide a completely novel understanding of the neural basis of human spatial navigation with body-based cues, fundamental to accurately modeling spatial cognition and understanding why we often get lost when we visit new cities.Almost all theories of the neural basis of spatial navigation, largely developed in freely navigating rodents, assume the critical importance of importance of body-based cues to this code. Yet the vast majority of studies in humans involve navigation in desktop virtual reality. The novel device that will be developed will permit 2-D locomotion-based VR navigation, allowing a full range of body/head rotations and ambulation. The experiments will determine 1) the contributions of body-based input to human spatial navigation and how navigation in VR with body-based can enhance subsequent knowledge of real world environments 2) how the brain codes spatial distance by employing simultaneous EEG recordings 3) how the brain codes the relative directions of landmarks in the environment by modeling the underlying multidimensional brain networks using high-resolution functional magnetic imaging (fMRI). The outcomes from these experiments will be important to testing models of spatial navigation and advancing our understanding of the extent to which we employ visual vs. body-based cues to represent spatial environments, currently an issue of significant debate in the field.