# Advanced Spatiomotor Rehabilitation for Navigation in Blindness & Visual Impairment

> **NIH NIH R01** · SMITH-KETTLEWELL EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE · 2020 · $494,027

## Abstract

Advanced Spatiomotor Rehabilitation for Navigation in Blindness & Visual Impairment
ABSTRACT
We propose a radical new multidisciplinary approach to navigation training in blindness and visual
impairment. Successful navigation requires the development of an accurate and flexible mental, or cognitive,
map of the navigational space and of the route trajectory required to travel from the current to the target
location. The Cognitive-Kinesthetic (C-K) Rehabilitation Training that we have developed in the preceding
period utilizes a unique form of blind memory-guided drawing to develop cognitive mapping to a high level
of proficiency. Particular reliance must be placed on such mental maps (supported only by tactile and
auditory inputs), and on the ability to use them effectively for spatiomotor control, when vision with its
built-in spatial functionality is lost. There is, however, a fundamental gap in the practice of Orientation and
Mobility (O&M), which is the lack of a specific emphasis on enhancement of these cognitive roots of
spatiomotor activity, despite their known importance for navigation in the visually impaired.
 We therefore propose a rigorous multidisciplinary approach to this issue, which lies at the intersection of
the fields of spatiomotor rehabilitation, blindness assessment technologies, and brain function, each a focus
of one Specific Aim. To train the spatial cognition abilities underlying successful navigation, the current
proposal aims to translate the power of the C-K Rehabilitation Training, which we developed in the preceding
grant period for the manual domain of operation, to the domain of navigation. The blind and visually
impaired trainees will quickly learn how to generate precise and stable cognitive maps of haptically explored
raised-line images or tactile maps, and how to use the formed cognitive maps to confidently guide both
drawing ’hand navigation’ on a map-scale, and whole-body blind navigation on the macro-scale. Once
translated to navigation, our preliminary data show that this efficient and enjoyable training will rapidly and
sustainably enhance spatial cognition functions both for improved navigation performance and for
enhancement of more general spatial cognitive skills.
 Beyond its practical advantages, the training will also serve as an efficient tool to drive and study
training-based neuroplasticity mechanisms through a comprehensive whole-brain multimodal brain imaging
platform. These neuroplastic are difficult to study properly without a rapid and effective training protocol,
which has not previously been available. Taken together, the research program will overcome the relative
disconnect between expanding neuroscience knowledge and approaches to practical blindness rehabilitation.
The knowledge gained will in turn inform and benefit further rehabilitative developments, both in navigation
proficiency and in more general cognitive function in the blind population.
!

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10018005
- **Project number:** 5R01EY024056-06
- **Recipient organization:** SMITH-KETTLEWELL EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- **Principal Investigator:** Lora T. Likova
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $494,027
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2014-04-01 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10018005

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10018005, Advanced Spatiomotor Rehabilitation for Navigation in Blindness & Visual Impairment (5R01EY024056-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10018005. Licensed CC0.

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