Skip to main content

Spatial navigation and visuospatial strategies in typical and atypical aging.

Laczó, M., Wiener, J.M., Kalinova, J., Matuskova, V., Vyhnalek, M., Hort, J. and Laczó, J., 2021. Spatial navigation and visuospatial strategies in typical and atypical aging. Brain Sciences, 11 (11), 1421.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF (OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE)
brainsci-11-01421.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

29MB

DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11111421

Abstract

Age-related spatial navigation decline is more pronounced in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia. We used a realistic-looking virtual navigation test suite to analyze different aspects of visuospatial processing in typical and atypical aging. A total of 219 older adults were recruited from the Czech Brain Aging Study cohort. Cognitively normal older adults (CN; n = 78), patients with amnestic MCI (n = 75), and those with mild AD dementia (n = 66) underwent three navigational tasks, cognitive assessment, and brain MRI. Route learning and wayfinding/perspective-taking tasks distinguished the groups as performance and learning declined and specific visuospatial strategies were less utilized with increasing cognitive impairment. Increased perspective shift and utilization of non-specific strategies were associated with worse task performance across the groups. Primacy and recency effects were observed across the groups in the route learning and the wayfinding/perspective-taking task, respectively. In addition, a primacy effect was present in the wayfinding/perspective-taking task in the CN older adults. More effective spatial navigation was associated with better memory and executive functions. The results demonstrate that a realistic and ecologically valid spatial navigation test suite can reveal different aspects of visuospatial processing in typical and atypical aging.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:2076-3425
Additional Information:This article belongs to the Special Issue Visuospatial Function in Early Alzheimer’s Disease, Healthy Elderly and MCI People
Uncontrolled Keywords:: mild cognitive impairment; Alzheimer’s disease; spatial navigation; route learning; wayfinding; perspective taking; navigation strategies; visuospatial functions
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:36226
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:09 Nov 2021 10:04
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:30

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -