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Clément Naveilhan

Université Côte d’Azur

Abstract : How does the human brain maintain a stable sense of direction during naturalistic navigation, and why does this ability decline with age? To address these questions, we conducted a series of three studies, combining immersive virtual reality with high-density mobile EEG while participants actively moved in path integration paradigms. First, we found that, in young adults, theta-band activity provides a flexible neural mechanism supporting the correction of the path integrator with visual landmarks. In a second protocol, we assessed howsimilar correction mechanisms could be recycled in the absence of visual landmarks, and found that theta bursts in the retrosplenial complex encode alignment with principal body axes, establishing an adaptive, egocentric scaffold for orientation. Finally, we transferred these findings to aging, demonstrating that navigational difficulties of older adults are directly linked to altered gait dynamics, and reflected in increased mid-frontal theta activity. Although older adults attempt to compensate for degraded locomotor integrity by relying heavily on visual landmarks, this strategy remains inefficient. Ultimately, these results advance a mechanistic cognitive–motor framework for human navigation, highlighting body-centred neural coding and locomotor integrity as critical determinants of spatial orientation, and opening new avenues for investigating brain dynamics in naturalistic, movement-rich settings using non-invasive neural recordings.