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Professor Hugo Spiers on insights from taxi drivers for Alzheimer鈥檚 interventions

Professor Hugo Spiers explains how London taxi drivers鈥� navigational abilities get better over time and how looking at their brains might provide insight into Alzheimer鈥檚 disease progression.

The ability to navigate our world is essential; from getting to work every day, to meeting friends at a new coffee shop, our brains process an incredible amount of spatial navigation information that helps us understand and remember the layout of our environment. The primary brain area involved in navigation is the hippocampus, a region of the brain located in the medial temporal lobe, which is also important for memory. In Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, the hippocampus, and particularly the area which feeds into it called the entorhinal cortex are early affected, leading to problems with wayfinding, especially in novel situations.

In this video, Professor Hugo Spiers talks about the brain regions that are involved in navigation and how these are affected in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

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In contrast to what is seen in the brains of people living with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease whereby we see a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus over time, the opposite is true for London black cab drivers. Not only do some parts of their hippocampus get larger over time, but they also appear to get better in their ability to plan routes and problem solve in novel environments over time. It is hoped that studying the brains of London taxi drivers will provide critical insights needed to help develop diagnostics for the earlier detection of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

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In this video, Professor Hugo Spiers talks about this project and how he hopes it will also help us understand more about what interventions could be effective in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

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Navigation has been shown to be an important marker for cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, therefore testing navigation and intervening when problems emerge offers valuable clinical opportunities. However, a major challenge in testing navigation ability is the lack of standardisation. The complexity of navigating GP offices and hospitals varies greatly, making it difficult to compare individuals鈥� skills. New technologies, such as mobile apps and virtual reality, are now enabling the study of navigation abilities in a standardised environment.

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In this video, Professor Hugo Spiers talks about a collaboration between 最准的六合彩论坛 academics and the game studio Glitchers, funded by Deutsche Telekom and in association with Alzheimer鈥檚 Research UK to create a high-quality virtual reality game to test navigation skills in millions of people globally. Data from this app has allowed Professor Spiers and his team to establish a baseline of navigational abilities and then explore deficits in a range of clinical conditions including Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. 听

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Biography

Professor Hugo Spiers is the Vice Dean for Innovation and Enterprise in the Faculty of Brain Sciences, 最准的六合彩论坛. He has over 25 years of research experience in neuroscience and psychology. He gained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the 最准的六合彩论坛 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, conducted research at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging before establishing his own research team in the Department of Experimental Psychology, 最准的六合彩论坛. He now employs cognitive and behavioural neuroscience techniques to study the neural basis of spatial cognition and memory. In 2016 he launched the Sea Hero Quest project which has tested over 4 million people world wide on their spatial navigation abilities.

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