Is Navigation in Virtual Reality with fMRI Really Navigation?

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 1008-1019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Taube ◽  
Stephane Valerio ◽  
Ryan M. Yoder
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Animal Models ◽  
Functional Imaging ◽  
Spatial Orientation ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Video Monitor ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Virtual Navigation ◽  
The Impact

Identifying the neural mechanisms underlying spatial orientation and navigation has long posed a challenge for researchers. Multiple approaches incorporating a variety of techniques and animal models have been used to address this issue. More recently, virtual navigation has become a popular tool for understanding navigational processes. Although combining this technique with functional imaging can provide important information on many aspects of spatial navigation, it is important to recognize some of the limitations these techniques have for gaining a complete understanding of the neural mechanisms of navigation. Foremost among these is that, when participants perform a virtual navigation task in a scanner, they are lying motionless in a supine position while viewing a video monitor. Here, we provide evidence that spatial orientation and navigation rely to a large extent on locomotion and its accompanying activation of motor, vestibular, and proprioceptive systems. Researchers should therefore consider the impact on the absence of these motion-based systems when interpreting virtual navigation/functional imaging experiments to achieve a more accurate understanding of the mechanisms underlying navigation.

scholarly journals Environmental anchoring of grid-like representations minimizes spatial uncertainty during navigation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Navarro Schröder ◽  
Benjamin W. Towse ◽  
Matthias Nau ◽  
Neil Burgess ◽  
Caswell Barry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Motion Parallax ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Cell System ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Spatial Uncertainty ◽  
Grid System ◽  
Virtual Navigation ◽  
Human Participants

SummaryMinimizing spatial uncertainty is essential for navigation, but the neural mechanisms remain elusive. Here we combine predictions of a simulated grid cell system with behavioural and fMRI measures in humans during virtual navigation. First, we showed that polarising cues produce anisotropy in motion parallax. Secondly, we simulated entorhinal grid cells in an environment with anisotropic information and found that self-location is decoded best when grid-patterns are aligned with the axis of greatest information. Thirdly, when exposing human participants to polarised virtual reality environments, we found that navigation performance is anisotropic, in line with the use of parallax. Eye movements showed that participants preferentially viewed polarising cues, which correlated with navigation performance. Finally, using fMRI we found that the orientation of grid-cell-like representations in entorhinal cortex anchored to the environmental axis of greatest parallax information, orthogonal to the polarisation axis. In sum, we demonstrate a crucial role of the entorhinal grid system in reducing uncertainty in representations of self-location and find evidence for adaptive spatial computations underlying entorhinal representations in service of optimal navigation.

Reading Spaces

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-93
Author(s):  
Katherine Kelp-Stebbins
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Orientation ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Page Layout ◽  
Representations Of Space

This chapter examines comics at the level of the page by considering the cultural techniques of reading and spatial navigation. The page, it is argued, is the space in comics where readers locate themselves politically and where, due to cultural and aesthetic conventions, readers may be dislocated and transformed. After first revisiting some theories of page layout in order to diagram how spatial orientation has been studied, the chapter then provides close readings of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’s Red: A Haida Manga. Focusing on the diversity of modes by which these comics both serve as and utilize spatial navigation according to paginal design—how they may be representations of space and spaces of representation simultaneously—it ultimately considers how comics and, in turn, how users, both artists and readers alike, activate and mobilize these technical possibilities into emergent forms of expression and meaning.

scholarly journals Consideration of Gut Microbiome in Murine Models of Diseases

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1062
Author(s):  
Chunye Zhang ◽  
Craig L. Franklin ◽  
Aaron C. Ericsson
Keyword(s):  
Animal Models ◽  
Mouse Models ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Gut Microbiome ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Disease Model ◽  
Potential Contributor ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Models Of Disease ◽  
The Impact

The gut microbiome (GM), a complex community of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi located in the gut of humans and animals, plays significant roles in host health and disease. Animal models are widely used to investigate human diseases in biomedical research and the GM within animal models can change due to the impact of many factors, such as the vendor, husbandry, and environment. Notably, variations in GM can contribute to differences in disease model phenotypes, which can result in poor reproducibility in biomedical research. Variation in the gut microbiome can also impact the translatability of animal models. For example, standard lab mice have different pathogen exposure experiences when compared to wild or pet store mice. As humans have antigen experiences that are more similar to the latter, the use of lab mice with more simplified microbiomes may not yield optimally translatable data. Additionally, the literature describes many methods to manipulate the GM and differences between these methods can also result in differing interpretations of outcomes measures. In this review, we focus on the GM as a potential contributor to the poor reproducibility and translatability of mouse models of disease. First, we summarize the important role of GM in host disease and health through different gut–organ axes and the close association between GM and disease susceptibility through colonization resistance, immune response, and metabolic pathways. Then, we focus on the variation in the microbiome in mouse models of disease and address how this variation can potentially impact disease phenotypes and subsequently influence research reproducibility and translatability. We also discuss the variations between genetic substrains as potential factors that cause poor reproducibility via their effects on the microbiome. In addition, we discuss the utility of complex microbiomes in prospective studies and how manipulation of the GM through differing transfer methods can impact model phenotypes. Lastly, we emphasize the need to explore appropriate methods of GM characterization and manipulation.

scholarly journals Gamification and Hazard Communication in Virtual Reality: A Qualitative Study

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (14) ◽  
pp. 4663
Author(s):  
Janaina Cavalcanti ◽  
Victor Valls ◽  
Manuel Contero ◽  
David Fonseca
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Training Environment ◽  
Hazard Communication ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
Compliance Behavior ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Recorded Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels

An effective warning attracts attention, elicits knowledge, and enables compliance behavior. Game mechanics, which are directly linked to human desires, stand out as training, evaluation, and improvement tools. Immersive virtual reality (VR) facilitates training without risk to participants, evaluates the impact of an incorrect action/decision, and creates a smart training environment. The present study analyzes the user experience in a gamified virtual environment of risks using the HTC Vive head-mounted display. The game was developed in the Unreal game engine and consisted of a walk-through maze composed of evident dangers and different signaling variables while user action data were recorded. To demonstrate which aspects provide better interaction, experience, perception and memory, three different warning configurations (dynamic, static and smart) and two different levels of danger (low and high) were presented. To properly assess the impact of the experience, we conducted a survey about personality and knowledge before and after using the game. We proceeded with the qualitative approach by using questions in a bipolar laddering assessment that was compared with the recorded data during the game. The findings indicate that when users are engaged in VR, they tend to test the consequences of their actions rather than maintaining safety. The results also reveal that textual signal variables are not accessed when users are faced with the stress factor of time. Progress is needed in implementing new technologies for warnings and advance notifications to improve the evaluation of human behavior in virtual environments of high-risk surroundings.

scholarly journals The effect of water immersion on vection in virtual reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Géraldine Fauville ◽  
Anna C. M. Queiroz ◽  
Erika S. Woolsey ◽  
Jonathan W. Kelly ◽  
Jeremy N. Bailenson
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Motion Sickness ◽  
Water Immersion ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Visually Induced Motion Sickness ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Induced Motion ◽  
Ground Condition ◽  
The Impact

AbstractResearch about vection (illusory self-motion) has investigated a wide range of sensory cues and employed various methods and equipment, including use of virtual reality (VR). However, there is currently no research in the field of vection on the impact of floating in water while experiencing VR. Aquatic immersion presents a new and interesting method to potentially enhance vection by reducing conflicting sensory information that is usually experienced when standing or sitting on a stable surface. This study compares vection, visually induced motion sickness, and presence among participants experiencing VR while standing on the ground or floating in water. Results show that vection was significantly enhanced for the participants in the Water condition, whose judgments of self-displacement were larger than those of participants in the Ground condition. No differences in visually induced motion sickness or presence were found between conditions. We discuss the implication of this new type of VR experience for the fields of VR and vection while also discussing future research questions that emerge from our findings.

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