Elizabeth Chrastil

Research

At the Spatial Neuroscience lab lead by Principal Investigator, Elizabeth Chrastil, we study human path integration, spatial memory, and large-scale navigation in complex environments. Our lab conducts experiments using both fully immersive virtual reality (at our CAVERN (Center for Ambulatory Virtual Environment Research in Navigation) Lab) and fMRI to understand how humans process self-motion information when navigating with and without landmarks. We look to examine how active and passive navigation affect learning a new environment applying these same techniques. In addition, we are interested in questions of how proprioceptive input, vestibular information, decision-making, and attention contribute to learning different types of spatial knowledge. Our lab is broadly interested in individual differences in navigational abilities. Our research examines the relationship between performance and brain function, looking at both brain structure and fMRI activation across individuals.