The investigators propose a radical new multidisciplinary approach to navigation training in blindness and visual impairment. Successful navigation requires the development of an accurate and flexible mental, or cognitive, map of the navigational space and of the route trajectory required to travel from the current to the target location. The Cognitive-Kinesthetic (C-K) Rehabilitation Training that the PI has developed in the preceding period utilizes a unique form of blind memory-guided drawing to develop cognitive mapping to a high level of proficiency. Particular reliance must be placed on such mental maps (supported only by tactile and auditory inputs), and on the ability to use them effectively for spatiomotor control, when vision with its built-in spatial functionality is lost. There is, however, a fundamental gap in the practice of Orientation and Mobility (O&M), which is the lack of a specific emphasis on enhancement of these cognitive roots of spatiomotor activity, despite their known importance for navigation in the visually impaired.~The investigators therefore propose a rigorous multidisciplinary approach to this issue, which lies at the intersection of the fields of spatiomotor rehabilitation, blindness assessment technologies, and brain function, each a focus of one Specific Aim. To train the spatial cognition abilities underlying successful navigation, the current proposal aims to translate the power of the C-K Rehabilitation Training to the domain of navigation. The blind and visually impaired trainees will quickly learn how to generate precise and stable cognitive maps of haptically explored raised-line images or tactile maps, and how to use the formed cognitive maps to confidently guide both drawing 'hand navigation' on a map-scale, and whole-body blind navigation on the macro-scale. Once translated to navigation, the preliminary data show that this efficient and enjoyable training will rapidly and sustainably enhance spatial cognition functions both for improved navigation performance and for enhancement of more general spatial cognitive skills. Beyond its practical advantages, the rapid and effective training protocol will also serve as an efficient tool to drive and study training-based neuroplasticity mechanisms through a comprehensive whole-brain multimodal brain imaging platform.
One of the most challenging tasks for blind and visually impaired individuals is navigation through a complex environment. The goal of the present multidisciplinary study is to increase spatial-cognition abilities in people who are blind or visually impaired through training with the previously-developed Cognitive-Kinesthetic Rehabilitation Training to improve navigation, and to investigate the resultant neuroplastic brain reorganization through multimodal brain imaging.~In accordance with National Eye Institute (NEI) strategic goals, this multidisciplinary project will promote the development of well-informed new approaches to navigational rehabilitation, memory enhancement and cross-modal brain plasticity to benefit 'cutting edge' fields of mobile assistive technologies, vision restoration and memory facilitation for the aging brain.