In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, spatial memory is the part of memory responsible for recording information about the environment and the orientation of one's space. For example, a person's spatial memory is needed to navigate around a familiar city, such as the spatial memory of rats needed to study the location of food at the end of the maze. It is often argued that in both humans and animals, spatial memories are summarized as cognitive maps. Spatial memory has representations in work, short-term memory and long-term memory. Research shows that there are certain areas of the brain associated with spatial memory. Many methods are used to measure spatial memory in children, adults, and animals.
Video Spatial memory
Short-term spatial memory
Short-term memory (STM) can be described as a system that allows one to store and manage the temporary information necessary to accomplish complex cognitive tasks. Tasks that use short-term memory include learning, reasoning, and understanding. Spatial memory is a cognitive process that allows one to remember different locations as well as the spatial relationships between objects. This allows one to remember where an object is in relation to another object; for example, allowing a person to explore a city he knows. Spatial memory is said to have formed after a person has collected and processed sensory information about himself or his environment.
Maps Spatial memory
Spatial working memory
Working memory (WM) can be described as a limited capacity system that allows one to store and process information temporarily. This temporary store allows one to complete or perform complex tasks while being able to store information in mind. For example, the ability to work on complicated math problems uses one's work memory.
One of the most influential theories of WM is the multi-component model of the working memory of Baddeley and Hitch. The latest version of this model shows that there are four subcomponents for WM, the phonological loop; visuo-spatial sketches; central executives; and episodic buffers. One component of this model, the visual-spatial sketch, is said to be responsible for temporary storage, maintenance, and manipulation of visual and spatial information.
Unlike the multi-component model, some researchers believe that STM should be seen as a unity construct. In this case, visual, spatial, and verbal information is thought to be governed by the level of representation rather than the type of store they belong to. In the literature, it is suggested that further research into STM and WM fractionation be explored. However, much research into building visuo-spatial memory has been done according to the paradigm put forward by Baddeley and Hitch.
The role of the central executive
Research in the proper function of the visuo-spatial sketch has shown that both spatial short-term memory and working memory depend on executive resources and are not entirely different. For example, performance on working memory but not on short-term memory tasks is affected by articulation suppression that indicates that disruptions to spatial tasks are caused by concurrent performance on tasks that have extensive use of executive resources. The results also found that performance was impaired on the STM and WM tasks with executive emphasis. It illustrates how, in the visuo-spatial domain, both STM and WM require the same utility of the central executive.
In addition, during spatial visualization tasks (related to executive function and not STM or WM), the performance of executive concomitant reduction of emphasis shows that the impact is due to the general demand of the central executive and not the short-term storage. The researchers concluded with an explanation that central executives use cognitive strategies that enable participants to encode and maintain mental representation during short-term memory tasks.
Although studies show that central executives are heavily involved in a number of spatial tasks, the exact way in which they are connected remains to be seen.
Long-term spatial memory
Spatial memory memories are built on a hierarchical structure. This means that people remember the general layout of a given space and then "gesture the target location" located within the spatial set. This paradigm includes the scale of the ordinal features that a person must pay attention to in informing his cognitive map. Spatial detail recordings are top-down procedures that require individuals to remember higher features of cognitive maps, followed by ordinate and subordinate features. Thus, two spatial features stand out in navigating the path: general layout and landmark orientation (Kahana et al., 2006).
People are not only able to learn about the surrounding spatial, but they can also collect new routes and new spatial relationships through inference. However, this field has traditionally been hampered by nuisance variables, such as the cost and potential for previous exposure to the experimental environment. Fortunately, technological leaps have opened up a whole new world, albeit virtual, to psychologists.
The cognitive map is a spatial model configuration of 'mental objects' that allows navigation along the optimal path between pairs of fickle points. "This mental map is built on two bedrock grounds: the layout, also known as route knowledge, and landmark orientation.The layout is potentially the first navigational method that people learn to utilize; the way it works reflects our most basic understanding of the world.
Hermer and Spelke (1994) determined that when toddlers begin walking, about eighteen months, they navigate by the sense of the layout of their world. Indeed, it would seem that the wandering toddler world is a place of axial lines and contrasting boundaries. McNamara, Hardy and Hirtle identify territory membership as the main building block of any cognitive map (1989). In particular, regional membership is defined by all kinds of limits, whether physical, perceptual or subjective (McNamara et al., 1989). Boundary is one of the most basic and endemic qualities in the world around us. These limits are no more than axial lines which are a biased feature of people when they relate to space; for example one of the axial line determiners is gravity (McNamara & Shelton, 2001; Kim & Penn, 2004). The axial line helps everyone in dividing our perceptions into the region. The idea of ​​a fragmented world is a further supported item with the finding that the items that can be drawn together are more likely than not to be grouped within the same region of the larger cognitive maps. Groupings show that people tend to share information together according to smaller layouts in larger cognitive maps.
Limit, though, is not the only determinant of the layout. Clustering also shows another important property of our relationship with spatial conception. It is that spatial memory is a hierarchical process. When someone remembers an environment or navigates the terrain, the person is implicitly recalling the overall layout at first. Then, because of the concept of "rich correlational structure", a series of associations becomes active. Finally the resulting activation cascade will generate special details corresponding to the drawn region. Here's how people encode entities from various ontological levels, such as stapler locations; on the table; which is in the office.. Unfortunately, the layout has its drawbacks as well. One can remember from only one in the region at a time (bottleneck).
Congestion in a person's cognitive navigation system can be disastrous, for example if there is a need to detour suddenly on a long journey. However, people are still able to get a place to function functionally. Lack of experience in the local, or just a mere measure, can ruin the mental layout of a person, especially in large and foreign places with many extraordinary stimuli. In this environment, people can still adjust, and even find their way using landmarks. This ability to "prioritize objects and territories in complex scenes for selection (and) recognition" was labeled by Chun and Jiang in 1998. Landmark guides people by activating "learned associations between global context and target locations." Mallot and Gillner (2000) suggest that the subject studied the relationship between a particular landmark and the curve direction, thereby promoting the relationship between associations and landmarks. Shelton and McNamara (2001) concisely conclude why landmarks, as markers, are helpful: "location... can not be explained without reference to observer orientation."
It is quite clear that people use certain space layouts, as well as the presence of orientations that are oriented to navigate. However, psychologists have not yet explained whether the layout affects a landmark or if a landmark determines the boundary of the layout. Thus, this concept suffers from the paradox of chicken and eggs. In fact, McNamara has found that subjects use "landmark groups as an intrinsic reference frame", which only confuses the problem further.
People see objects in their environment relative to other objects in the same environment. In other words, landmarks and layout are free systems for spatial remembering. However, it is not known how these two systems interact when both types of information are available. Thus, we must make certain assumptions about the interaction between these two systems. For example, cognitive maps are not "absolute" but rather, as anyone can prove, "is used to provide a default... (that) is modulated according to... task demands." Psychologists also think that cognitive maps are sample-based, which accounts for "discriminatory matching with past experience."
These assumptions can be immediately validated. Progress in virtual reality technology has opened the door to this enigmatic field. Now researchers find themselves creating scenarios that were unimaginable fifteen years ago. Virtual reality gives extreme controllers extreme control over their test environment. Each variable can be manipulated, including things that are not possible in reality.
Virtual reality
During one recent study, researchers designed three different virtual cities, each with its own unique "road layout and a set of five unique stores." However, the overall trace of a different map is exactly the same size, "80 sq. Unit." In this experiment, participants must take part in two different sets of trials.
First, the participants were assigned two of the three virtual landscapes and assigned to the role of a taxi driver. The participant avatars took a total of 25 passengers and dropped them at random locations across the map. The researcher measured the participants' length of delivery paths in both sets of first experiments. They found that there was "a marked decrease in road length with an increase in the number of deliveries in the city." The participants' enhanced route length correlates with the increase in the amount of experience they get while driving in virtual cities. However, as expected, knowledge gained by participants from the first city did not transfer, or assist them, on their way around the second city. Thus, Newman et al. (2006) concluded that the participants "formed a representation of each city's survey." They went around enough to conclude the general layout of the rest.
The second set of experiments involves the same task for the participants but with some changes to the environmental context. The researchers added two more maps and made them smaller. It should be noted that the second maps specified in this trial are standardized with the same layout and landmark, which means that all participants will experience this map on their second journey. In addition, three of the five maps "replaced some set of landmarks with new landmarks while the fixed target location layout (ed) remains unchanged." The other two maps are "identical" to the landscape that passes both of the second or both landmark experiments and their relative location changes. Again, Newman et al. measured "excess path length," focusing specifically on the excess distance made on the first shipment of the second map in the second trial, where they believe that spatial learning will transfer most of the first map. They found that groups who experienced changes in representation of buildings in the same location had the highest level of knowledge transfer layout from the first city.
The results of the first trial showed that people were able to study the interactive spatial environment. The second experiment showed that despite changes in the presence of landmarks, participants were still able to "find the new shortest route." Because the participants did not travel across the previously memorized route and kept performing well in line with the "excess road" standard, Newman et al. concluded that this result was attested "some representation of high order surveys of the environment."
Spatial skills
In the literature there is evidence that experts in a particular field are capable of performing memory tasks according to their skills at an extraordinary level. The skill levels featured by experts have also been said to exceed the normal capacity limits of both STM and WM. It is believed that because experts have a large amount of knowledge that is preceded and task-specific, they can encode information in a more efficient way.
An interesting study that investigates the memory of taxi drivers for streets in Helsinki, Finland, examines the role of spatial knowledge that has been studied previously. This study compares the experts with the control group to determine how previously learned knowledge in their skill domain enabled them to overcome the limited capacity of STM and WM. This study used four levels of spatial randomness:
- Route Order - spatially sustainable route
- Random Route - spatially sustainable list presented randomly
- The Map sequence - the street names form a straight line on the map, but ignore the middle streets
- Random Map - paths on the map are displayed in random order
The results of this study indicate that taxi drivers '(experts') recalled the higher streets both in the order condition of the route and the condition of the map order rather than in two random conditions. This shows that experts can use the spatial knowledge they have understood to organize information in such a way that it goes beyond the limits of the STM and WM capacities. The organizational strategy used by riders is known as chunking. In addition, comments made by experts during the procedure point against the use of their route knowledge in completing the task. To ensure that it is actually the spatial information that they are encoding, the researchers also present the list in alphabetical order and semantic categories. However, the researchers found that it was in fact spatial information that the experts were chunking, allowing them to go beyond the limitations of both visuo-spatial STM and WM.
Animal research
In the literature it has been found that certain species of paridae and corvidae (such as black-covered chickadee and scrub jay) can use spatial memory to remember where, when and what kind of food they are cached. Recent studies with mice and squirrels, also suggested that they can use spatial memory to find previously hidden food. Experiments using radial mazes have allowed researchers to control a number of variables, such as hidden food types, locations where food is hidden, retention intervals, and odor signals that can make the memory research results inaccurate. Specifically, studies have shown that mice have a memory where they have hidden food and what kind of food they hide. This is demonstrated in the retrieval behavior, such that selective rats go more often into the labyrinth arm where they previously hid preferred foods rather than arms with less favored foods or where no food was hidden.
Thus, the evidence for the spatial memory of several animal species, such as rats, suggests that they use spatial memory to locate and retrieve hidden food stores.
During studies using GPS tracking to see where domestic cats go when their owners let them outside, it has been shown that cats have excellent spatial memory. Some of the cats in this study showed remarkable long-term spatial memory. One such cat, which normally travels no more than 200 m (660 ft) to 250 m (820 ft) from its home, has unexpectedly taken 1,250 m (4,100 ft) from its home. The researchers initially thought this was a GPS malfunction, but soon discovered that the cat owner went out of town that weekend, and that the house the cat occupied was the owner's old home. Owners and cats have not lived in that house for more than a year.
Spacial-visual differences
Logie (1995) proposes that the visuo-spatial sketch is broken down into two subcomponents, one visual and one spatial. This is the visual cache and scribe inside, respectively. The visual cache is a visual store while it includes such dimensions and colors. In contrast, internal scribes are the exercise mechanism for visual information and are responsible for information about the sequence of movements. Although a lack of consensus on these differences has been noted in the literature, there is increasing evidence that the two components are separate and serve different functions.
Visual memory is responsible for maintaining visual form and color (ie, what), whereas spatial memory is responsible for information about location and movement (ie, where). This distinction is not always clear because part of the visual memory involves spatial information and vice versa. For example, the memory for the object form usually involves maintaining information about the spatial arrangement of the features that define the object in question.
In practice both systems work together in several capacities but different tasks have been developed to highlight the unique abilities involved in visual or spatial memory. For example, visual pattern tests (VPT) measure the visual range whereas Corsi Task Block measures the spatial range. Correlational studies of two sizes show a separation between visual and spatial abilities, due to the lack of correlation found between them in healthy patients and those with brain damage.
Support for the sharing of visual and spatial memory components is found through experiments using a dual-task paradigm. Numerous studies have shown that visual form retention or color (ie, visual information) is disrupted by irrelevant presentation of images or dynamic visual disturbances. In contrast, location retention (ie, spatial information) is only disturbed by spatial tracking tasks, spatial tapping tasks, and eye movements. For example, participants completed both VPT and Corsi Task Blocs in a selective interference experiment. During the VPT retention interval, the subject sees irrelevant images (for example, avant-garde paintings). Spatial interference tasks require participants to follow, by touching the stimulus, setting a small wooden peg hidden behind the scenes. Both visual and spatial ranges are shortened by their respective interference tasks, confirming that Corsi Block Tasks primarily relate to spatial working memory.
Measurement
There are various tasks that psychologists use to measure spatial memory in adults, children and animal models. These tasks enable professionals to identify cognitive irregularities in adults and children and enable researchers to manage different types of drugs and/or lesions on participants and measure the consequential effects on spatial memory.
Corsi blocking wiretapping jobs
Also known as the Corsi Span Test, this psychological test is commonly used to define the spatial-visual memory range and the implicit visual-spatial learning ability of an individual. The participants sat with nine 3x3-cm beams tied in front of them on a 25 x 30 cm pedestal in standard random order. The experiment taps the block of sequence patterns which then must be replicated by the participants. The blocks are numbered on the researcher's side to allow for efficient pattern demonstration. The length of the sequence improves each experiment until participants can no longer replicate the pattern correctly. This test can be used to measure short and long term spatial memory, depending on the length of time between the test and the recall.
This test was made by Canadian neuropsychologist Phillip Corsi, who modeled after the Hebb digit ranges by replacing numerical test items with spatial ones. On average, most participants reach a five item range on the Corsi range test and seven on the digit range assignment.
Visual pattern range
This is similar to the Corsi block interception test but is considered a purer test of short-term memory. Participants are presented with a series of matrix patterns that have half their cells colored and the other half empty. Matrix patterns are arranged in ways that are difficult to encode verbally, forcing participants to depend on visual spatial memory. Starting with a small 2 x 2 matrix, participants copied the matrix pattern from memory into an empty matrix. The matrix pattern increases in size and complexity at the cellular level until the participant's ability to replicate it is damaged. On average, the performance of participants tends to break down on sixteen cells.
Lane range assignment
This task is designed to measure spatial memory capabilities in children. Questioner asks participants to visualize an empty matrix with a small man. Through a series of direction instructions such as forward, backward, left or right, the experiment guides the participant's little human on the path across the matrix. In the end, the participant is asked to show the real matrix in which the little man he or she visualizes is complete. Path length varies depending on the difficulty level (1-10) and the matrix itself can vary from 2 x 2 cells up to 6 x 6.
Dynamic labyrinth
This is intended to measure spatial abilities in children. With this test, an experiment presents participants with labyrinth images with a picture of a man in the middle. While the participants watched, the experiment used his finger to trace the path from opening the labyrinth to the man's image. Participants are then expected to replicate the path shown through the labyrinth to the man's image. Mazes vary in complexity as difficulty increases.
Radial arm labyrinth
First pioneered by Olton and Samuelson in 1976, the radial arm labyrinth was designed to test the spatial memory capabilities of rats. Labyrinths are usually designed with a central platform and a number of arms that branch off with food placed at the ends. Weapons are usually shielded from each other in some way but not to the extent that external cues can not be used as reference points.
In most cases, rats are placed in the center of the labyrinth and need to explore each arm individually to pick up the food while remembering which arm has been chased. The labyrinth is arranged so that rats are forced to return to the labyrinth center before pursuing the other arm. Steps are usually taken to prevent mice using their sense of smell to navigate like placing additional food throughout the bottom of the labyrinth.
Morris water navigation task is a classic test for learning spatial and memory learning in mice and was first developed in 1981 by Richard G. Morris for whom the test was named. Subjects are placed in a translucent translucent water tank with walls too high for it to come out and water too deep to stand. In addition, the tank wall is adorned with visual cues for reference. points. Rats must swim around the pool until by chance he finds just beneath the surface of a hidden platform where he can climb.
Usually, rats swim around the edge of the pool first before venturing out into the middle in a winding pattern before stumbling on a hidden platform. However, as time spent in the pool improves the experience, the amount of time it takes to find the platform decreases, with veteran mice swimming directly onto the platform as soon as it is placed in the water.
Physiology
Hippocampus
The hippocampus provides animals with their environmental spatial maps. It stores information about non-egocentric spaces (egocentric way refers to one's body position in space) and therefore supports the independence of viewpoints in spatial memory. This means it allows for the manipulation of points of view from memory. Nevertheless, it is important for long-term spatial memory of allocentric space (reference to external cues in space). Maintenance and retrieval of memory thus depends on relational or context. The hippocampus makes use of reference and working memory and has an important role in processing information about spatial locations.
Blocking plasticity in this region creates problems in navigational destinations directed and impairs ability to remember the exact location. Amnesic patients with damage to the hippocampus can not study or remember spatial and patients who experience hippocampal removal are severely impaired in spatial navigation. Monkeys with lesions to this area can not study the association of places and mice also show spatial deficits by not reacting to spatial changes. In addition, mice with hippocampal lesions proved to have retrospective ungraded (time-independent) retrograde amnesia that are resistant to the recognition of platform tasks studied only when the entire hippocampus lesions, but not when partially lesions. Deficits in spatial memory are also found in spatial discrimination tasks.
Major differences in spatial damage are found between the hippocampus of the back and ventral. Lesions to the ventral hippocampus have no effect on spatial memory, whereas the dorsal hippocampus is required for retrieval, short-term memory processing and transfer of memory from short-term to longer delay periods. An amphetamine infusion into the dorsal hippocampus has also been shown to increase memory for previously studied spatial sites. These findings suggest that there is a functional dissociation between the dorsal and ventral hippocampus.
Differences in hemispheres in the hippocampus were also observed. A study of taxi drivers in London, asking drivers to remember complex routes around the city as well as famous places where drivers do not know their spatial location. This resulted in the activation of the right hippocampus only during complex route withdrawals indicating that the right hippocampus is used for navigation in large-scale spatial environments.
The hippocampus is known to contain two separate memory circuits. One circuit is used for place recognition memory based on recollection and includes the entorhinal-CA1 system, whereas another system, consisting of the hippocampus (entohinal-dentate-CA3-CA1) trisinaps used for retaining memory and facilitation of plasticity in the entorhinal-dentate synapse in mice enough to improve memory.
Place cells are also found in the hippocampus.
Posterior parietal cortex
The parietal cortex encodes spatial information using an egocentric frame of reference. It is therefore involved in the transformation of the coordinate of sensory information into action or coordinate effector by updating the spatial representation of the body in the environment. As a result, lesions into the parietal cortex result in deficits in acquisition and retention of egocentric tasks, while minor damage is seen among allocentric tasks.
Mice with lesions to the anterior region of the posterior parietal cortex recovered the displaced object, while mice with lesions to the posterior area of ​​the posterior parietal cortex did not show any reaction to spatial changes.
Parietal cortex lesions are also known to produce temporally untreated retrograde amnesia.
Enofthinal cortex
The dorsalcaudal medial entorhinal cortex (dMEC) contains a topographically organized spatial environment map consisting of grid cells. This brain region thereby alters the sensory input of the environment and stores it as a durable, long-lived alocentric representation in the brain that will be used for path integration.
The entorhinal cortex contributes to the processing and integration of geometric and information properties in the environment. Lesions to this region interfere with the use of distal but not proximal landmarks during navigation and produce deficits depending on spatial memory proportional to the length of delay. Lesions to the region are also known to cause a retention deficit for the studied task for up to 4 weeks but not 6 weeks before the lesion.
The consolidated memory in the entorhinal cortex is achieved through extracellular signal-regulated kinase activity.
Prefrontal cortex
The medial prefrontal cortex processes egocentric spatial information. It participates in the processing of short-term spatial memory used to guide the planned search behavior and is believed to join spatial information with its motivational significance. Identification of neurons that anticipate expected benefits in spatial tasks supports this hypothesis. The medial prefrontal cortex is also involved in the organization of temporal information.
Specialty hemisphere is found in this region of the brain. The left prefrontal cortex privately processes categorical spatial memory including source memory (references to spatial relationships between places or events), whereas the special right praphrontal cortex processes spatial memory coordinates including item memory (reference to spatial relationships between feature items).
Damage to the medial prefrontal cortex interferes with the performance of mice in the labyrinth of previously trained radial arms, however, mice may gradually increase to the level of control as a function of experience. Lesions to this area also cause deficits in task delays and impairments that are inconsistent with positions in the acquisition of spatial memory tasks during training trials.
Retrosplenial cortex
Retrosplenial cortex is involved in memory allocentric processing and geometric properties in the environment. The inactivation of this region causes navigation disturbance in the dark and thus it is involved to engage in path integration process.
Lesions into the retrosplenial cortex consistently impair the allocentric memory test, while avoiding egocentric memory. Animals with lesions in the caudal retrosplenial cortex exhibit impaired performance in the radial arm labyrinth only when the maze is rotated to remove its dependence on intramaze cues.
In humans, damage to the retrosplenial cortex results in topographic disorientation. Most cases involve damage to the right retrosplenial cortex and include the Brodmann 30 area. Patients are often disturbed in learning new routes and navigating through familiar environments. However, most patients usually recover within 8 weeks.
Retrosplenial cortex is more specialized in processing spatial information in the right hemisphere.
The perirhinal cortex
The perirhinal cortex is associated with spatial reference and spatial working memory. It processes relational information on environmental and location cues.
Lesions on the perirhinal cortex account for deficits in reference memory and working memory, and increased the speed of forgetting information during Morris water labyrinth trials. This account is for a decrease in initial acquisition of assignments. Lesions also cause damage to the task of locating objects and reducing the habitualizing of new environments.
Neuroplasticity
Spatial memory is formed after animals collect and process sensory information about their environment (especially vision and proprioception). In general, mammals require a functioning hippocampus (especially CA1 area) to form and process memory memories of space. There is some evidence that human spatial memory is deeply bound to the right hemisphere.
Spatial learning requires NMDA and AMPA receptors, consolidation requires NMDA receptors, and spatial memory retrieval requires AMPA receptors. In rodents, spatial memory has been shown to the covary with a part size of the projection of hippocampal mossy fibers.
The NMDA receptor function varies according to the hippocampal subcategory. NMDA receptors are required in CA3 from the hippocampus when spatial information needs to be rearranged, while NMDA receptors in CA1 are required in acquisition and retrieval of memory after delays, as well as in the formation of columns where CA1. NMDA receptor blockade prevents long-term induction of potentiation and impairs spatial learning.
CA3 of the hippocampus plays a very important role in coding and retrieving spatial memory. CA3 is supplied by two afferent pathways known as perforating pathways (PPCA3) and dentate gyrus (DG) -mediated mossy fibers (MFs). The first line is considered to be the second temporary index capture path associated with encoding.
Interruption/deficit
Topographic Disorientation
Topographic distortion is a cognitive impairment that causes an individual to not direct itself in a real or virtual environment. Patients also struggle with spatial information dependent tasks. These problems may be the result of disruption in the ability to access a person's cognitive map, mental representation of the surrounding environment or the inability to judge the location of objects in relation to oneself.
Developmental Disorientation Topography (DTD) is diagnosed when the patient shows an inability to navigate even a familiar environment at birth and does not show clear neurological causes for these deficiencies such as lesions or brain damage. DTD is a relatively new disorder and can occur in varying degrees of severity.
Topographic Disorientation in Mild Cognitive Disorder: A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study was conducted to see if topographic disorientation has an effect on individuals who have mild cognitive impairment. The study was conducted by recruiting forty-one patients diagnosed with MCI and 24 healthy control individuals. The standards set for this experiment are:
- Subjective cognitive complaints by the patient or caregiver.
- Normal cognitive function is normal above the 16th percentile of the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE).
- Normal daily life activities (ADLs) are assessed clinically and on a standard scale (as described below).
- Objective cognitive decline below the 16th percentile on neuropsychological tests.
- Dementia exceptions.
(TD) is assessed clinically in all participants. Neurological and neuropsychological evaluations are determined by magnetic imaging scans performed on each participant. Voxel-based morphometry is used to compare gray atrophy patterns between patients with and without TD, and a group of normal controls. The result of the experiment was that they found TD in 17 of 41 MCI patients (41.4%). Functional abilities were significantly impaired in MCI patients with TD compared to MCI patients without BP and that the presence of TD in MCI patients was associated with loss of gray matter in the medial temporal region, including the hippocampus.
Hippocampal and schizophrenic damage
Studies with rats suggest that spatial memory may be affected by neonatal damage to the hippocampus in a schizophrenic way. Schizophrenia is thought to originate from neurodevelopment problems immediately after birth.
Mice are usually used as models of schizophrenic patients. The experiment creates lesions in the ventral hippocampus immediately after birth, a procedure known as the neonatal ventral hypokampus lesion (NVHL). Adult mice with NVHL exhibit typical indicators of schizophrenia such as hypersensitivity to psychostimulants, reducing social interactions and impaired prepulse inhibition, memory work and set-shifting. Similar to schizophrenia, the disorder in mice fails to use the environmental context in spatial learning tasks such as showing the difficulty of completing the labyrinth of the radial arm and the Morris water maze.
GPS
Recent research on spatial memory and path search in an article by Ishikawa et al. in 2008 revealed that using a mobile GPS map device reduces the ability of individual navigation when compared to other participants who use the map or have previous experience on the route with the guide. GPS mobile map devices are often set to allow users to see only the small details of a particular segment of the map that are constantly updated. For comparison, maps usually allow the user to see the same views of the entire route from departure to arrival. Other studies have shown that individuals who use GPS travel are slower overall compared to faster map users. GPS users are more often stopped and for longer periods of time while map and individual users use their past experiences as travel guides on a more direct route to reach their destination.
Learning difficulties
Nonverbal learning disabilities are characterized by normal verbal abilities but impair visuospatial abilities. The problem areas for children with nonverbal learning disabilities are arithmetic, geometry, and science. Disorders in spatial memory are involved in nonverbal learning disorders and other learning difficulties.
The problem of arithmetic words involves a written text containing a series of data followed by one or more questions and requiring the use of four basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division). The researchers suggest that solving the problem of successful arithmetic words involves spatial working memory (involved in constructing schematic representations) that facilitate the creation of spatial relationships between objects. Creating spatial relationships between objects is an important part of solving word problems because mental operations and transformation are needed.
For example, consider the following question: "A child builds three towers using red and white blocks of the same size.The lowest tower has 14 blocks, the highest has 7 more blocks The intermediary tower has three blocks less than the highest How many blocks in each of the three towers? "To overcome the question, it is necessary to retain incoming information (ie text) and integrate it with previous information (such as knowledge for arithmetic operations). Individuals must also choose relevant (ie spatial relationships between the blocks) and inhibit irrelevant information (ie color and texture blocks) and simultaneously build a mental representation of the problem.
Researchers investigate the role of spatial memory and visual memory in the ability to solve arithmetic word problems. Children in research completed the Corsi Block Task (forward and backward series) and spatial matrix tasks, as well as visual memory tasks called home recognition tests. Bad troubleshooters experience interruptions in Corsi Block Tasks and spatial matrix tasks, but are performed normally on home recognition tests when compared to normal children. Experiments show that poor troubleshooting is particularly relevant to the processing of spatial information that is lacking.
Sleep
Sleep has been found to benefit spatial memory, by increasing hippocampal-dependent memory consolidation. The hippocampus area activated in route learning is reactivated during subsequent sleep (NREM sleep in particular). It was shown in a particular study that the actual rate of reactivation during sleep correlates with the increase in route taking and thus the memory performance the next day. Thus, this study establishes the idea that sleep enhances the process of consolidated system level which consequently increases/improves behavioral performance. Furthermore, the waking period has no effect on memory footprint stability, compared to the sleep period. Sleeping after the first post-training night, ie on the second night, does not benefit any further spatial memory consolidation. Therefore, sleeping in the night after the first training for example after learning the route, the most important.
Lack of sleep and sleep is also an association under study. Lack of sleep actually inhibits the increase in memory performance due to active disruption of spatial memory consolidation. Therefore, spatial memory is enhanced by the sleep period.
See also
- Cognitive map
- Disociation (neuropsychology)
- Locus method
- Spatial ability
- Space mapping
- Visual memory
References
External links
- gettinglost.ca
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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