Sense of self impacts spatial navigation and hexadirectional coding in human entorhinal cortex

Abstract

Grid cells in entorhinal cortex (EC) encode an individuals location in space and rely on environmental cues and self-motion cues derived from the individuals body. Body-derived signals are also primary signals for the sense of self and self-identification with a body. However, it is currently unknown whether self-identification impacts grid cells and spatial navigation. Integrating the online manipulation of bodily signals, to modulate self-identification, into a spatial navigation task and with an fMRI measure to detect grid cell-like representation (GCLR) in humans, we report improved spatial navigation performance and decreased GCLR in EC when participants navigated with enhanced self-identification. These changes were further associated with increased activity in posterior parietal and retrosplenial cortex. Modulating self-identification by controlling online body-derived signals during spatial navigation, these data link the sense of self to spatial navigation and to entorhinal grid cell-like activity within a distributed cortical spatial navigation system.