Science - USA (2022-01-21)

274 21 JANUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6578 science.org SCIENCE

PHOTO: NEW AFRICA/SHUTTERSTOCK

By Marcia Bécu1,2 and Christian F. Doeller1,2,3

A

n acquaintance comes to mind who
gets lost after a few turns. Another
can maintain, as if by magic, a good
sense of orientation in any setting,
whether a crowded metropolis or
deep in the woods. Have you ever
wondered why people differ so much when
it comes to wayfinding? Or which brain
mechanisms allow us to know where we are
and the way to reach distant locations?
In Dark and Magical Places, Christopher
Kemp reviews the major discoveries that
have built this fascinating re-
search field, from the seminal
works of psychologist Edward
C. Tolman, who worshipped
mazes as the paragon of
methods to reveal the brain’s
navigational secrets, to de-
scriptions of the elegant cellu-
lar machinery, scattered across
the brain, that renders naviga-
tion possible. Throughout the
book, he tells the stories of the
technological advances that
accompanied relevant discov-
eries, from a simple bag of
flour with holes in it tied to
subjects while they navigated
a maze to the most advanced
virtual reality and neuroimag-
ing techniques.
Through a series of inter-
views with key researchers,
we learn that the hippocampus, a small
area hidden deep in the brain, is empow-
ered by place cells, which will always fire
when we occupy a given location in space.
By alternating between representations
of the past (the well-known route), the
present (where we are now), and the pos-
sible futures (paths that we have not yet
traveled), place cells are thought to en-
able memory consolidation and mental

projection through time. Alongside the

hippocampus, Kemp describes the “usual

suspects” that form our navigation hub: the

entorhinal cortex, the metric system that

contains grid cells, the retrosplenial cortex,

and much more. He also provides examples

of clinical cases that help to emphasize the

subtlety of the brain’s spatial machinery, as

well as what happens when one piece of the

network fails.

Kemp’s quest is not limited to contem-

porary neuroscientific insights; he also em-

barks on a journey through evolutionary

time. He explains that symbolic thinking,

long-distance trading, and social connec-

tions helped to distinguish Homo sapiens

from its early contemporaries. Through rich

and amusing interviews with paleoneurolo-

gists and paleopsychologists, we learn that

the spreading of modern humans across the

planet is likely a reflection of our powerful

spatial abilities—abilities made possible by

the expansion of the parietal lobe.

Guided by the need to understand his own

navigational shortcomings, Kemp charts evi-

dence supporting the influence of both na-

ture and nurture on our wayfinding skills.

We were not born genetically equal in spatial

aspects, he reveals. Genetic studies on twins

have found that spatial skills—both poor

and strong—are highly heritable and tend to

cluster in individuals and in single families.

Kemp concludes with an international

examination of how cultures, environ-

ments, and languages affect navigation.

Here, he describes the navigational super-

powers of the Tsimane who navigate the

Amazon rainforest and the linguistic sin-

gularities of the Tenejapan Mayans. The

latter, we learn, do not rely on “left” and

“right” as directional indicators but rather

use “uphill” or “downhill,” for example,

“Please pass the cup that is uphill.”

If you, like the author, feel as though you

are among the “constantly lost,” this book

will alleviate any feeling of social guilt. It

also suggests ways to improve. First: Navi-

gate. Spatial memory obeys the “use it or

lose it” rule, and those of us who are too

dependent on GPS technolo-

gies may run the risk of los-

ing it. Second: Focus and look

around. Paying attention to

your environment is critical

to successful navigation. Turn

around, if you can, and have

a look at your surroundings

from different perspectives.

Finally, identify a stable land-

mark and orient yourself rela-

tive to it at all times.

This tome is no textbook. It

is designed to be accessible to

a large audience: Nonscien-

tists will benefit from Kemp’s

capacity to render vivid repre-

sentations of the complexity

of living organisms, but sci-

entists, too, are likely to gain

something from reading this

book. Kemp offers context,

both historical and societal, for the sci-

entific discoveries he presents, as well as

some behind-the-scenes stories, as told to

him by scientists themselves.

Spatial cognition is a rich and productive

research domain, earning John O’Keefe,

May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in

2014 and garnering more than 1000 pub-

lications in 2020, but it is a topic that is

too prolific to be considered in its entirety.

Kemp wisely chooses to concentrate in-

stead on the big picture, offering a poetical

overview of the field that highlights how

much of the magic the brain uses to rep-

resent space remains to be understood. j

10.1126/science.abn0862

NEUROSCIENCE

Lost and found

A lyrical meditation on wayfinding offers cultural context

and hope for the navigationally challenged

Dark and Magical Places:

The Neuroscience

of Navigation

Christopher Kemp

Norton, 2022. 256 pp.

Practice can help those with a poor sense of direction improve their spatial abilities.

INSIGHTS | BOOKS

The reviewers are at the^1 Centre for Neural Computation,
Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical
Microcircuits, and K.G. Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer’s
Disease, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trondheim, Norway;^2 Max Planck Institute for Human
Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; and

(^3) Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University,
Leipzig, Germany. Email: [email protected]