8. Navigation I

The lecture explores how the brain enables navigation, focusing on the challenges of determining location and direction. It begins by discussing the Haxby 2001 article, addressing the challenge to the functional specificity of the face area and the place area. Examples from nature, such as monarch butterflies, loggerhead turtles, and Tunisian desert ants, illustrate the complexities of animal navigation. The lecture then breaks down the components of navigation, including recognizing places, understanding spatial geometry, and planning routes, and introduces the concept of mental maps using Tolman's rat experiment. The parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) are examined as key brain regions involved in spatial perception and orientation, with evidence from fMRI studies and patient cases. The lecture concludes by introducing functional MRI adaptation as a method to understand neural discrimination.