Cortical Correlates of Spatial Navigation Skills in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment

The goal of this study is to investigate the neural mechanisms that undergoes spatial navigation skills in children/adolescents aged between 8 and 17 years. These skills play an important role in daily life, as they allow us to orient ourselves in familiar and unfamiliar environments, locate objects, interact with them and memorize their position. Navigation abilities vary widely between individuals, change with age and might be affected by diseases, such as the cerebral palsy (CP). Previous studies have, in fact, demonstrated differences in the learning and adaptation methods of spatial navigation skills in children affected by CP compared to typically developing (TD) peers. Through the use of the electroencephalogram (EEG) we want to shed light on the mechanisms that govern this ability with the aim of:

1. better characterize spatial navigation skills in children/adolescents, both TD and affected by CP; 2. investigate the origin of the differences found between the spatial navigation skills of TD children and those affected by CP, improving knowledge of the pathology and thus allowing, in the future, to identify more adequate rehabilitation interventions.