PARIS, April 1 — If you grew up in Paris, your sense of direction may not be the same as someone from New York.

At least that’s the theory of a new global study co-led by France’s CNRS National Centre for Scientific Research.

To reach such conclusions, the scientists compared the performances of nearly 400,000 people from 38 different countries.

The tool used to evaluate participants’ sense of direction was the video game "Sea Hero Quest,” developed specifically to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.

Conducted by a team of researchers from the Laboratoire d’Informatique en Image et Systèmes d’Information (LIRIS, CNRS/INSA Lyon/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1) and the Institute of Behavioural Neurosciences at University College London, the study suggests that, on average, people who grew up in rural areas have a better sense of direction than people who grew up in cities.

"Rural areas are by nature more complex than grid-based cities: road networks are less organised and distances travelled are often greater,” Antoine Coutrot, a researcher at CNRS and co-author of the study, told ETX Daily Up.

This extent of this city-countryside divide was found to vary from country to country, proving considerably more marked in Canada, the United States, Argentina and Saudi Arabia, for example.

The study also found differences between residents of major cities around the world. For example, growing up in a city with a more eclectic layout, such as Paris or Prague, was found to confer a better sense of direction as an adult.

"The street networks in Paris or Prague are particularly tortuous, at least as much as what can be found outside of cities. This explains the differences between countries. In Europe or Asia, cities are generally complex, so the differences in spatial skills are smaller between city dwellers and non-city dwellers. But in other countries, cities are often simpler, more grid-structured, as is the case in Argentina, Canada or the United States,” explains Antoine Coutrot.

A factor to consider in Alzheimer’s diagnosis

Logically, people are also more likely to be able to find their way around cities with a layout similar to the one they lived in as a child. A New Yorker could have difficulty finding their way around Paris, for example, but they may be more at ease in a city like Chicago.

"The sense of direction is like all cognitive abilities: the more we use it, the better it becomes! We can therefore deduce that when we grow up in a complex city, we use our sense of direction more, because we need it more than in a city where it is easier to find our way around,” says Antoine Coutrot.

These new scientific findings make it possible to better understand the cognitive capacities of adults and to integrate them into the methods of diagnosis and management of neurodegenerative pathologies. "We show that the environment in which we grow up shapes our cognitive skills, particularly those related to spatial navigation.

This information is important when it comes to using spatial navigation tests in a clinical context, for example for the detection of Alzheimer’s disease. A physician will be able to adapt their interpretation of the test results according to the childhood environment of their patients,” concludes Antoine Coutrot. — ETX Studio