How do we learn our way around new environments, such as when you move to a new city? Scientists have been asking this question for many years, and new findings from brain imaging studies are helping to answer it.

Several brain regions are thought to be critical for learning new routes and environments, including a region in the back of the brain called the retrosplenial area, and the hippocampus, which is important for all kinds of memory, not just memory for environments.

Using a new virtual reality environment and functional MRI scanning, scientists from Germany, led by Thomas Wolbers and Christian B�chel, studied people learning this virtual environment while their brain activity was being measured as they "moved" through the space.

After each learning session, the participants were tested on their knowledge of the environment and the buildings within it. Activity in the retrosplenial region increased across the learning sessions, paralleling the improvements seen in memory for the environment. In contrast activity in the hippocampus was high during the initial learning phase and declined after performance had approached maximum levels.

These results suggest that no single brain region serves as a "map" in our heads. Instead, some brain regions help us to learn information about landmarks and spatial layouts as we continue to move through a new environment, while other areas act to integrate this new information early on, and then their work is done.

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