# Auditory-based navigation: attentional shifts rapidly modulate hippocampal codes

> **NIH NIH R01** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $431,032

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The hippocampus, a brain structure implicated in spatial memory and navigation, show changes in the course
of aging, mental illnesses, neurological disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. Hippocampal dysfunctions
give rise to diverse clinical symptoms, many of which are tied to impairments in attention and navigation. In
healthy subjects, spatial attention and navigation are tightly linked, because mapping the environment requires
attention to one’s surroundings. Furthermore, while navigating, humans and other animals switch attention
between two complementary coordinate systems: a world-centered reference frame for monitoring absolute
position, and an egocentric reference frame for monitoring relative position with respect to obstacles,
conspecifics, and targets. Little is known about neural dynamics that underlie the rapid shifts in attention that
accompany switches between these reference frames—primarily because reliable indicators of spatial
attention are lacking in standard animal models. The proposed research bridges this gap by exploiting the bat,
a mammal that actively controls its echolocation signals to attend to objects while navigating—similar to many
blind humans who use echoes from self-produced sounds (tongue clicks and cane tapping) to localize objects
and navigate indoors and outdoors. Both bats and human blind echolocators attend to objects using their
sonar, generating an ‘acoustic flashlight’—which provides a direct metric of their moment-to-moment spatial
attention. The proposed experiments will track overt spatial attentional shifts while wirelessly recording
hippocampal neurons to study attentional effects on neural activity. The hypothesis to be tested is that overt
spatial attention rapidly modulates hippocampal spatial codes, by sharpening spatial representation and by
switching hippocampal coding between world-centered and egocentric coordinate frames. To do so, animals
will navigate under two conditions: (1) a stationary and predictable environment where animals direct attention
to fixed objects, and where attentional demands are relatively low; and (2) an unpredictable environment with
moving conspecifics and targets, where attentional demands are high and animals shift attention rapidly to
inspect dynamic objects. These predictable and unpredictable conditions will be studied in two different
experimental setups: a three-dimensional multimedia test room where animals navigate slowly, and a 200-
meter, one-dimensional tunnel where animals travel at high speeds. Because echolocation provides a powerful
explicit indicator of overt spatial attention, this research will yield transformative insights into attention-driven
hippocampal dynamics during naturalistic behavior. The findings will offer new insights into neurological deficits
in spatial navigation and memory, yield technological advances in the design of lightweight, miniaturized
assistive medical devices used to monitor patient health...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10813013
- **Project number:** 5R01NS121413-04
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** CYNTHIA F MOSS
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $431,032
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2026-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10813013

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10813013, Auditory-based navigation: attentional shifts rapidly modulate hippocampal codes (5R01NS121413-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10813013. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*