#iSCAN2025 #SpatialCognition#Aging #Neurodegeneration #Dementia #VirtualReality

Many firsts with this review:
🌟 First first-authored paper from our fantastic lab manager
🌟 My first time as senior co-author (!)
#Neuroscience #VirtualReality #Aging #ClinicalResearch #Intervention

This work provides a nuanced understanding of PI in aging and early neurodegeneration, using cutting-edge methods to distinguish normal aging from early AD. The results are crucial for both understanding healthy aging and identifying early AD biomarkers. #Aging #AlzheimersResearch #Neuroscience

This study sets the stage for longitudinal work examining how baseline PI performance might predict future cognitive decline in the same cohort. It also paves the way for using immersive VR as a scalable, sensitive tool for early disease detection. 7/n #LongitudinalResearch #VirtualReality

This work offers insights into early AD-related pathology and underscores memory leak as a potential early marker for AD. It also demonstrates how NFL can help us understand broader neurodegenerative effects in aging. 6/n 🌍 #EarlyDetection #Neurodegeneration

Neurofilament light chain (NFL), a biomarker of neurodegeneration, plays a key role in PI variability. NFL is linked to increased reporting noise, showing that age-related neurodegeneration impacts PI performance beyond AD-specific processes. 5/n #NFL #Biomarkers

Our results show that memory leak is a hallmark of PI deficits in SCD. This means individuals with SCD struggle to maintain a stable internal representation of their position, pointing to potential entorhinal cortex dysfunction. Not just movement or perceptual factors at play! 4/n #entrohinalcortex

We show that path integration is impaired in pre-clinical AD (SCD). Then we use a novel Bayesian model to decompose PI errors into distinct components --> 3/n #pathintegration

Path integration, is crucial for understanding cognitive decline. It relies on entorhinal grid cells, which are vulnerable to early Alzheimer's disease pathology. But what happens in SCD? We bridged this gap by examining PI impairments in SCD vs healthy aging. 2/n