Professor Hugo Spiers on insights from taxi drivers for Alzheimer’s interventions

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’s 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’s disease.

In contrast to what is seen in the brains of people living with Alzheimer’s 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’s disease.

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’s disease.

Navigation has been shown to be an important marker for cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer’s 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’ skills. New technologies, such as mobile apps and virtual reality, are now enabling the study of navigation abilities in a standardised environment.

In this video, Professor Hugo Spiers talks about a collaboration between UCL academics and the game studio Glitchers, funded by Deutsche Telekom and in association with Alzheimer’s 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’s disease.  

Links

• Professor Hugo Spiers' academic profile
• News article: London taxi drivers’ brains being scanned for Alzheimer’s research
• Information about Sea Hero Quest

Biography

Professor Hugo Spiers is the Vice Dean for Innovation and Enterprise in the Faculty of Brain Sciences, UCL. He has over 25 years of research experience in neuroscience and psychology. He gained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the UCL 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, UCL. 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.