TY - JOUR TI - Landmark-based spatial navigation across the human lifespan AU - Bécu, Marcia AU - Sheynikhovich, Denis AU - Ramanoël, Stephen AU - Tatur, Guillaume AU - Ozier-Lafontaine, Anthony AU - Authié, Colas N AU - Sahel, José-Alain AU - Arleo, Angelo A2 - Ekstrom, Arne A2 - Baker, Chris I VL - 12 PY - 2023 DA - 2023/03/13 SP - e81318 C1 - eLife 2023;12:e81318 DO - 10.7554/eLife.81318 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.81318 AB - Human spatial cognition has been mainly characterized in terms of egocentric (body-centered) and allocentric (world-centered) wayfinding behavior. It was hypothesized that allocentric spatial coding, as a special high-level cognitive ability, develops later and deteriorates earlier than the egocentric one throughout lifetime. We challenged this hypothesis by testing the use of landmarks versus geometric cues in a cohort of 96 deeply phenotyped participants, who physically navigated an equiangular Y maze, surrounded by landmarks or an anisotropic one. The results show that an apparent allocentric deficit in children and aged navigators is caused specifically by difficulties in using landmarks for navigation while introducing a geometric polarization of space made these participants as efficient allocentric navigators as young adults. This finding suggests that allocentric behavior relies on two dissociable sensory processing systems that are differentially affected by human aging. Whereas landmark processing follows an inverted-U dependence on age, spatial geometry processing is conserved, highlighting its potential in improving navigation performance across the lifespan. KW - spatial navigation KW - spatial cognition KW - human aging KW - landmark KW - geometry JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -