Aging people commonly show a decline in navigation ability, and this has generally been attributed to worsening spatial memory. But now, researchers from the US have shown for the first time that this decline is partly driven by changes in typical exploration behavior by middle age. In a maze learning task, middle-aged people were less efficient explorers than young people. This discovery could have applications in the clinical diagnosis and therapy of cognitive decline and dementia.

Spatial navigation – the ability to select and follow a route from one place to another – is a skill we use every day. Depending on practice, general cognitive ability, and childhood environment, some people are naturally better at this than others. But research has also shown that people’s skill in spatial navigation tends to decrease with increasing age.

This decline in navigation skill has been generally attributed to worsening spatial memory, due to changes in brain structure and function that naturally occur with age. But what if it isn’t just due to our spatial memory declining, but also to changes in how we explore a novel environment? Such a shift has been observed in aging animals, ranging from insects to rodents and fish.

And now, an analogous shift in exploration behavior in middle age has been shown for the first time in humans. These results, which ultimately could have clinical applications, are published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.