Iaria Giuseppe, Lanyon Linda J, Fox Christopher J, Giaschi Deborah, Barton Jason J S
Department of Medicine (Neurology), Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Hippocampus. 2008;18(4):335-9. doi: 10.1002/hipo.20400.
Individuals vary widely in their ability to orient within the environment. We used diffusion tensor imaging to investigate whether this ability, as measured by navigational performance in a virtual environment, correlates with the anatomic structural properties of the hippocampus, i.e., fractional anisotropy. We found that individuals with high fractional anisotropy in the right hippocampus are (a) faster in forming a cognitive map of the environment, and (b) more efficient in using this map for the purpose of orientation, than individuals with low fractional anisotropy. These results are consistent with the role of the hippocampus in navigation, and suggest that its microstructural properties may contribute to the intersubject variability observed in spatial orientation.
个体在环境中定向的能力差异很大。我们使用扩散张量成像来研究这种能力（通过虚拟环境中的导航表现来衡量）是否与海马体的解剖结构特性（即分数各向异性）相关。我们发现，右侧海马体分数各向异性高的个体，与分数各向异性低的个体相比，（a）在形成环境认知地图方面更快，且（b）在利用该地图进行定向时更高效。这些结果与海马体在导航中的作用一致，并表明其微观结构特性可能导致了在空间定向中观察到的个体间差异。
