Abstract
Spatial navigation is a fundamental behavior of animals and humans and involves processes of planning a route and executing movements towards environmental goals. While there are many components to successful navigation, two frequently cited navigation strategies, egocentric (self-centered) and allocentric (world-centered), use different types of spatial reference frames to develop internal representations of surrounding environment.
Egocentric navigation is a navigation strategy, where spatial information about locations and objects is encoded from the viewpoint of the navigator to form a self-centered spatial reference frame (self-to-object representations). Allocentric navigation is a navigation strategy, where locations and objects are encoded in relation to one another independently of the position of the navigator to form a world-centered spatial reference frame (object-to-object representations).
Navigation is an inherently complex and multi-modal cognitive process and consequently, a large network of brain regions is recruited when navigating our environment. These include the medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, the retrosplenial cortex and other regions of the parietal lobe and the prefrontal cortex.
Some research indicates that the hippocampus and related medial temporal lobe structures play a prominent role in allocentric navigation and the precuneus and the caudate nucleus play a more prominent role in egocentric navigation.