Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA.
Hippocampus. 2010 Apr;20(4):481-91. doi: 10.1002/hipo.20651.
The Morris water maze is a standard paradigm for the testing of hippocampal function in laboratory animals. Virtual versions of the Morris water maze are now available and can be used to assess spatial learning and memory ability in both healthy and brain injured participants. To evaluate the importance of the hippocampus in spatial learning and memory, we tested five amnesic participants with selective hippocampal damage using a virtual water maze called the Arena Maze. The amnesic participants with hippocampal damage were impaired on the invisible platform (place) task that required them to use distal cues, but were able to navigate almost as well as comparison participants when the invisible platform was marked by a single proximal cue. These results not only confirm that the hippocampus plays a necessary role in human navigation in large-scale environments but also provides a new link between the mnemonic and navigational roles of the hippocampus.
水迷宫是一种用于检测实验室动物海马功能的标准范式。现在已经有了虚拟版的水迷宫，可以用于评估健康人和脑损伤参与者的空间学习和记忆能力。为了评估海马在空间学习和记忆中的重要性，我们使用一种名为 Arena Maze 的虚拟水迷宫，对五名患有选择性海马损伤的健忘症患者进行了测试。患有海马损伤的健忘症患者在需要使用远距离线索的不可见平台（位置）任务中表现受损，但当不可见平台仅由一个近距离线索标记时，他们的导航能力几乎与对照组参与者一样好。这些结果不仅证实了海马在人类在大规模环境中的导航中起着必要的作用，而且还为海马的记忆和导航作用之间提供了新的联系。
