TY  - JOUR
AU  - Harris, Mathew A
AU  - Wolbers, Thomas
TI  - How age-related strategy switching deficits affect wayfinding in complex environments.
JO  - Neurobiology of aging
VL  - 35
IS  - 5
SN  - 0197-4580
CY  - Amsterdam [u.a.]
PB  - Elsevier Science
M1  - DZNE-2020-03617
SP  - 1095-1102
PY  - 2014
AB  - Although most research on navigation in aging focuses on allocentric processing deficits, impaired strategy switching may also contribute to navigational decline. Using a specifically designed task involving navigating a town-like virtual environment, we assessed the ability of young and old participants to switch from following learned routes to finding novel shortcuts. We found large age differences in the length of routes taken during testing and in use of shortcuts, as, while nearly all young participants switched from the egocentric route-following strategy to the allocentric wayfinding strategy, none of the older participants stably switched. Although secondary tasks confirmed that older participants were impaired both at strategy switching and allocentric processing, the difficulty in using shortcuts was selectively related to impaired strategy switching. This may in turn relate to dysfunction of the prefrontal-noradrenergic network responsible for coordinating switching behavior. We conclude that the large age difference in performance at the shortcutting task demonstrates for the first time, how strategy switching deficits can have a severe impact on navigation in aging.
KW  - Adolescent
KW  - Adult
KW  - Aged
KW  - Aging: physiology
KW  - Aging: psychology
KW  - Female
KW  - Humans
KW  - Male
KW  - Maze Learning: physiology
KW  - Middle Aged
KW  - Nerve Net: physiopathology
KW  - Norepinephrine: physiology
KW  - Prefrontal Cortex: physiopathology
KW  - Space Perception: physiology
KW  - Spatial Behavior: physiology
KW  - Young Adult
KW  - Norepinephrine (NLM Chemicals)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:24239438
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2013.10.086
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/137295
ER  -