Spatial navigation is a high-level cognitive function that enables humans to orientate themselves and move around in space by constructing a mental representation of the environment. It is particularly interesting because it involves numerous neural networks, linked to proprioception and vision, for example. Despite the versatility of this cognitive function, spatial navigation is little studied clinically, although changes in spatial planning and navigation strategies have been associated with many brain disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (Coughlan et al., 2018). This may be explained in view of the neuropsychological tests currently in use, which do not effectively assess spatial navigation disorders. In addition, many non-pathological parameters - in particular socio-demographic and lifestyle - (Wolbers \& Hegarty, 2010; Coutrot et al., 2018) affect spatial navigation performance. Separating the pathological component from these non-pathological factors in spatial navigation can be challenging. In this context, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ) has been developed (Coutrot et al., 2018; Spiers et al., 2021) as an international-scale cognitive spatial navigation task that holds great promise for assessing spatial navigation performance during normal and pathological ageing. SHQ is a video game that implements classic tasks from the spatial cognition literature, and has enabled the trajectories of 4 million players with varied socio-demographic profiles to be collected. In addition to the direct measurement of spatial displacements, eye movements, measured by eye-tracking, provide additional information on the cognitive processes associated with visual attention. The analysis of eye movements can provide valuable information about the strategies employed by humans during spatial navigation (Zhu et al., eLife 2023). While it is well known that normal ageing and pathological ageing (e.g. in the context of Alzheimer's disease) affect performance in simple spatial navigation or visual attention tasks, the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in this deterioration remain poorly understood. The investigators hypothesise that the joint analysis of ocular and spatial traces will provide a more detailed understanding of the cognitive strategies deployed during a spatial navigation task, and therefore of these underlying mechanisms. The investigators therefore propose to jointly study the association between two complementary cognitive functions: spatial navigation and visual attention, and their relationship with normal and pathological ageing (confirmed Alzheimer's disease, plasma biomarkers and genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease). The joint analysis of these different signals has never been carried out as part of research into normal ageing and Alzheimer's disease.
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Analysis of spatial navigation strategies used by participants according to age.
Timeframe: Day 1 Just After inclusion
Antoine GARNIER-CRUSSARD, Dr