Our research group explores how the brain allows us to recall the past, navigate the present and imagine the future.

The lab is led by Prof Hugo Spiers and based in the UCL Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience within the Department of Experimental Psychology at University College London. Much of our research focuses on navigation, exploring questions such as:

Why are some people better at navigating than others? How do different brain regions process spatial information for navigation? How are hierarchical representations of space used in navigation and planning? Our research has focused on the role played by the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and parahippocampal structures. We use a wide range of methods to examine the role these brain regions play that include:

Immersive virtual reality
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM)
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)
Neuropsychological testing of patients
Transcranial brain stimulation (tDCS/tACS)
in vivo electrophysiology in rodents
Eye-tracking
GPS-tracking
Computational modelling
Cognitive Discourse Analysis
Machine learning
App-based mass online data collection

Read about our research themes for more details