TY - JOUR T1 - Intrinsic Hippocampal-Caudate Interaction Correlates with Human Navigation JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/116129 SP - 116129 AU - Xiang-Zhen Kong AU - Yi Pu AU - Xu Wang AU - Shan Xu AU - Xin Hao AU - Zonglei Zhen AU - Jia Liu Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/12/116129.abstract N2 - Spatial navigation is a crucial ability in daily life. Previous neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies suggested that two spatial representation systems with either the hippocampus or the caudate nucleus at the core play an important but distinct role underlying navigation. However, it remains unclear whether and how these two systems interact during rest, and how the intrinsic interactions support human navigation. Here we investigated the intrinsic hippocampal-caudate interactions using resting-state fMRI and functional connectivity analysis, and related the interactions to individual variability in navigation performance across a large group of healthy young adults (N = 190). We found that the hippocampus showed predominantly positive functional connectivity with the caudate (especially in good navigators), suggesting an efficient hippocampal-caudate cross talk during rest, which may facilitate stronger functional integration of two systems of spatial representations underlying navigation. As expected, we found positive correlations between the hippocampal-caudate interactions and better navigation ability as measured with the Santa Barbara sense of direction scale (SBSOD). Moreover, prediction analysis with machine learning algorithm and a cross-validation procedure showed that individual’s behavioral performance in a virtual reality 3D pointing task were generally well predicted by the hippocampal-caudate interactions. Taken together, these results suggest a cooperative interaction between two representation systems underlying navigation, and further study on the dynamic interaction between the two core structures would help us identify previously ignored effects and advance our understanding of normal aging and psychiatric disorders. ER -