'Neural compass' in brain helping one orient, navigate found in study

New Delhi: Brain activity that helps prevent people from getting lost has been identified in a new study. Researchers said they have been able to locate an internal 'neural compass' in the brain used when one is orienting themselves and navigating through the environment.

The team, including researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, said the results have implications for understanding diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, in which an individual's capacity for navigation and direction are often impaired.

"Keeping track of the direction you are heading in is pretty important. Even small errors in estimating where you are and which direction you are heading in can be disastrous.

"We know that animals such as birds, rats and bats have neural circuitry that keeps them on track, but we know surprisingly little about how the human brain manages this out and about in the real world," said Benjamin J. Griffiths from the University of Birmingham and first author of the study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

For the study, the researchers measured electrical activity in the brains of 52 healthy participants, whose movements were tracked as they moved their heads to orientate themselves to cues on different computer monitors. The electric signals were measured from the hippocampus and neighbouring regions.

In a separate study, the researchers monitored electric signals in the brains of 10 participants having conditions such as epilepsy.

All the tasks prompted participants to move their heads, or sometimes just their eyes, and brain signals from these movements were recorded by an electroencephalograph, the researchers said.

They thus showed a "finely tuned directional signal", which could be detected right before the head physically turned its direction among the participants.

"Isolating these signals enables us to really focus on how the brain processes navigational information and how these signals work alongside other cues such as visual landmarks.

"Our approach has opened up new avenues for exploring these features, with implications for research into neurodegenerative diseases and even for improving navigational technologies in robotics and AI," said Griffiths.