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·March 2, 2026·8 min read

AI Fails to Find Link Between Brain Structure and Navigation Skills

Advanced AI tools fail to find a link between the physical structure of the brain and navigation ability, challenging decades of neuroscientific assumptions.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 3, 2025·9 min read

How the Brain’s GPS System Falters With Age

Spatial memory — the ability to recall “where” — is one of the first cognitive skills to decline in aging and a hallmark of dementia. Researchers found that in older mice, grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex, which act like the brain’s GPS, became unstable and less precise.

This shows a brain surrounded by arrows.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 11, 2025·5 min read

How the Brain Uses Objects to Find Direction

Scientists discovered how the brain uses objects to anchor our sense of direction, solving part of the mystery of spatial navigation. Experiments in mice showed that cells in the postsubiculum fired strongly when facing an object, while cells for other directions were suppressed, sharpening orientation.

This shows a brain with an overlay of compass points.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·August 18, 2025·2 min read

Brain’s Inner Compass Reveals How We Navigate Cityscapes

A new study used virtual reality taxi driving tasks to uncover how the brain maintains a sense of direction in naturalistic environments. Neuroimaging showed that two brain regions consistently tracked forward-facing direction, even when visual features, task phases, and city layouts varied.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 6, 2025·7 min read

Brain Area Stores and Resolves Hypotheses for Landmark Ambiguity

Researchers have discovered that the mouse brain can simultaneously encode multiple hypotheses about its spatial location while navigating environments with ambiguous landmarks. In a complex task requiring mice to distinguish between identical cues, neurons in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) exhibited distinct activity patterns reflecting different possibilities of where the mouse might be.

This shows a child navigating a virtual city and a brain.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 11, 2025·9 min read

Five-Year-Olds Can Navigate Maps Using Adultlike Brain Systems

New research shows that the brain region supporting map-based navigation is active in children as young as five years old. Using a child-friendly virtual environment called Tiny Town, researchers demonstrated that young children can build and mentally hold maps to guide navigation.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 10, 2024·7 min read

How Sleep Shapes Our Brain’s Mental Navigational Maps

A new study reveals how the brain forms cohesive mental maps of spaces and highlights the critical role of sleep in this process. While "place cells" in the hippocampus mark specific locations, weaker spatial cells stitch these points into a comprehensive cognitive map.

This shows a woman looking at a brain model.

Featured Neuroscience

·November 15, 2024·4 min read

Brain Circuits for Spatial Memory and Navigation Identified

Researchers have identified two neural circuits in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) that are critical for spatial navigation and memory storage. The M2-projecting pathway links spatial thought to action, while the AD-projecting pathway supports location-specific memory.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 31, 2024·5 min read

Echolocation Map Helps Bats Navigate Kilometers in the Dark

Researchers have shown that echolocating bats use an acoustic map of their environment to navigate long distances, even after being displaced. In a study on Kuhl’s pipistrelle bats, scientists tracked the bats’ return journeys across a three-kilometer radius using echolocation alone.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 3, 2024·5 min read

Fruit Flies’ Small Neuron Network Defies Navigation Theories

Neuroscientists have uncovered how a small network of neurons in fruit flies accurately maintains an internal compass, defying previous theories that required large networks for precision. This new understanding reveals that small networks, when carefully connected, can perform complex tasks like tracking spatial orientation.

This shows an older woman walking in the woods.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·June 11, 2024·5 min read

Age Alters How We Navigate New Environments

Middle-aged adults explore new environments less thoroughly than younger individuals, prioritizing key locations over overall layout. Using virtual reality, the study observed significant differences in exploration and navigation behaviors between age groups.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 20, 2024·4 min read

VR Unveils Brain’s GPS Response to Illusions

Researchers successfully induced illusions of self-location in participants using multi-sensory virtual reality (VR). They observed corresponding changes in the brain's grid cells, which are responsible for spatial navigation. This study is the first to demonstrate that purely cognitive changes in self-location, without physical movement or visual cues, can trigger activity in grid cells.