# Neural mechanisms of landmark-based navigation

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2020 · $556,841

## Abstract

Project Summary
A fundamental aspect of our existence is the fact that we live in a spatially extended world. To
survive and flourish in this world, we must have some method for navigating efficiently from
place to place. The current project focuses on the neural mechanisms that underlie landmark-
based navigation (LBN)—navigation that is guided by spatially stable elements of the
environment. To implement LBN, a person must be able to 1) perceive the local environment, 2)
use features of the local environment to determine their location and orientation in the world,
and 3) plan a route that takes them from their current location to their navigational goal. In
previous funding periods, we have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
other methods to identify regions of the human brain that mediate these operations and to
assign functional roles to these regions. Now we seek to integrate these findings to understand
how these neural/cognitive components work together to implement LBN during realistic
navigational episodes. In aim 1 we will identify the spatial representations that are
simultaneously active in the human brain during dynamic navigation, including representations
of location and heading, and representations of the navigational goal. In aim 2 we seek to
understand the remapping mechanisms that allow a navigator to negotiate a complex world that
contains multiple local environments. In aim 3 we will delineate the reorientation mechanisms
that allow a navigator to establish (or re-establish) their sense of place and direction after losing
their bearings. Together, these operations—knowing where we are in the world and the location
of our goal, distinguishing between different spatial environments, and recovering our bearings
when we are disoriented—constitute core elements of spatial navigation. Understanding the
neural mechanisms that underlie these elements would be a major and sustained intellectual
advance in an area that has long been a central topic of investigation in psychology and
neuroscience.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10049779
- **Project number:** 2R01EY022350-08
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** RUSSELL A EPSTEIN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $556,841
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2013-03-01 → 2024-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10049779

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10049779, Neural mechanisms of landmark-based navigation (2R01EY022350-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10049779. Licensed CC0.

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