GPS Systems May Not Be Good Your Brain

Updated: Monday, 22 Nov 2010, 10:57 AM MST
Published : Monday, 22 Nov 2010, 10:56 AM MST

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - A new study suggests that, for memory's sake, it may be wiser to slow down and smell the roses than rush to a destination using a GPS.

Three studies by McGill University assistant professor of psychiatry Veronique Bohbot suggest active GPS users have a higher risk of suffering memory problems as they get older, reported Discovery News .

The studies focused on how people navigate. One method, spatial navigation strategy, forces people to rely on landmarks to build cognitive maps. This is how a lost person stays aware of landmarks or how long it's been since they left a place in order to find their way.

Another, a stimulus-response strategy, is when people use a form of auto-pilot, turning at specific places because they have so many times before. This is similar to using a GPS device.

Younger people favored the spatial navigation while older people preferred the stimulus-response.

The scientists used fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, to scan the brains of people who use the two methods. The research showed that the non-GPS method resulted in increased use of the brain's hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and navigation.

It showed those who used the GPS-like stimulus-response could be at risk of showing atrophy of the hippocampus, which is of concern because memory loss including Alzheimer's disease affects that area of the brain first.

MSNBC.com said older adults who used spatial strategies more have a larger hippocampus and scored higher on a test used to help diagnose mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.

International Business Times said the study took advantage of virtual environments that helped study how the brain remembers settings by having humans navigate them. Bohbot, who is also employed by the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, said they worked with video game editors to make an environment in which they created different landmarks, objects and tasks. They then took away the landmarks to see how well people did.

MSNBC said Bohbot, who presented the research at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting on Sunday, is not suggesting abandoning the GPS all together.

"What I say to people is that we can use GPS to explore the environment, but don't become dependent on it," she said.

Such advice may be valuable for another reason. The UK Telegraph reported that a small number of the six million pilgrims who head to the Catholic shrine in Lourdes, Fance are showing up at a village named Lourde instead. Their mishap was leaving the "s" off in their satellite navigational system.

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