Sea Hero Quest in data

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Selected highlights

In no particular order, this is a selection of highlights from published papers, preprints and talks relating to Sea Hero Quest.

Professor Hugo Spiers on navigation and virtual reality games in Alzheimer's research

UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences, video

Hugo Spiers, one of the scientists behind Sea Hero Quest, explains why the ability to find your way is such a sensitive early signal of Alzheimer's, and how a video game played by millions became a research tool for measuring it.

Antoine Coutrot, un jeu vidéo pour détecter Alzheimer

CNRS Talents, video (in French, English captions)

Antoine Coutrot, the CNRS researcher behind much of the Sea Hero Quest data science, on how a video game can help detect Alzheimer's disease early. Part of the CNRS Talents series, in French with English captions turned on by default.

Research visualization

From Players to Participants: Citizen Science and Video Games to Understand Cognition

Syrine Salouhou, Edgar Dubourg, Maxwell Scott-Slade et al. 2026 (in review)

A timely review on why citizen science video games are becoming essential for cognitive research. The paper lays out the scale of the problem — 96% of psychology participants come from just 12% of the world — and shows how game-based projects like Sea Hero Quest (4M+ players across the globe) help close that gap. It also pulls in rare practical guidance from professional game developers on what it actually takes to build a game that's scientifically rigorous, ethically sound, and engaging enough to keep players coming back.

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Research visualization

Spatial navigation in preclinical Alzheimer's disease: A review

Syrine Salouhou, Victor Gilles, Remi Vallée et al. 2026 (preprint)

This review makes a strong case for what we've believed for years — that spatial navigation is one of the most sensitive early signals of Alzheimer's. The authors map how path integration and wayfinding rely on the exact brain circuits where AD pathology first appears, and show that navigation performance in cognitively unimpaired people correlates with plasma and CSF biomarkers like p-tau. A great synthesis of why scalable navigation testing matters for detecting at-risk individuals before symptoms emerge.

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Research visualization

Social determinants of cognitive aging trajectories across 39 countries

Victor Gilles, Syrine Salouhou, Rémi Vallée et al. 2024 (preprint)

The best descriptions come from the research community — like this short sentence we really liked from an upcoming paper that looks at 'Social determinants of cognitive aging trajectories across 39 countries'.

"Cognition is assessed using Sea Hero Quest, a spatial navigation video game that predicts spatial ability in the real world."
Read the paper
Research visualization

Geometry of navigation identifies genetic-risk and clinical Alzheimer's disease

Uzu Lim et al. 2024 (preprint)

We love this pre-print by Uzu Lim because it looks at alternative performance metrics in the existing normative benchmark. In our eyes, it's a really exciting analysis of some additional ways to determine performance from things like path curvature and boundary effects in conjunction with Duration and Length. One to watch!

Read the paper

Papers

YearPaperJournalAuthor(s)
2026Aphantasia is associated with spatial memory and navigation difficulties in complex virtual environmentsNeuropsychologiaLi, A., Coutrot, A., Faromika, T. I. et al.
2026Determinants of individual navigation abilityNature Reviews PsychologyEmre Yavuz & Hugo J. Spiers
2025Separable cognitive and motor decline tracked across adult life-span for goal-directed navigation.iScienceGian Luca Lancia, Marco D'Alessandro, Mattia Eluchans. et al.
2025Education Is Positively and Causally Linked With Spatial Navigation Ability Across the LifespanOpen MindAntoine Coutrot, Rogier A Kievit, Stuart J Ritchie et al.
2024Shorter self-reported sleep duration is associated with worse virtual spatial navigation performance in men.Scientific ReportsYavuz, E., Gahnstrom, C.J., Goodroe, S. et al.
2024Spatial Orientation Assessment in the Elderly: A Comprehensive Review of Current TestsBrain SciencesPanagiota Tragantzopoulou & Vaitsa Giannouli
2024Lost in space(s): Multimodal neuroimaging of disorientation along the Alzheimer's disease continuumHuman Brain MappingPeters-Founshtein, G., Gazit, L., Naveh, T. et al.
2024Individuals learning to drive solo before age 18 have superior spatial navigation ability compared with those who learn laterSpatial Cognition & ComputationYavuz, E., Manley, E., Gahnstrom, C. et al.
2024Video gaming, but not reliance on GPS, is associated with spatial navigation performanceJournal of Environmental PsychologyYavuz, E., Chuanxiuyue He, Gahnstrom, C. et al.
2024Combining patient-lesion and big data approaches to reveal hippocampal contributions to spatial memory and navigation.iSciencePishdadian, S., Coutrot, A., Webber, L. et al.
2024Using games to understand the mindNature Human BehaviourAllen, K., Brändle, F., Botvinick, M. et al.
2024The relationship between object-based spatial ability and virtual navigation performancePLoS ONEGarg, T., Velasco, P. F., Patai, Z. E. et al.
2023Wayfinding and path integration deficits detected using a virtual reality mobile app in patients with traumatic brain injuryPLoS ONESeton, C., Coutrot, A., Hornberger, M. et al.
2023Hydrocephalus: A neuropsychological and theoretical primerCortexZaksaite, T., Loveday, C., Edginton, T. et al.
2023Motivational Factors for Participating in Citizen Science GamesNorthumbria Research PortalDalton, R., Wiener, J., Yesiltepe, D. et al.
2023Cultural determinants of the gap between self-estimated navigation ability and wayfinding performance: evidence from 46 countriesScientific ReportsWalkowiak, S., Coutrot, A., Hegarty, M. et al.
2023Landmark-dependent Navigation Strategy Declines across the Human Life-Span: Evidence from Over 37,000 ParticipantsJournal of Cognitive NeuroscienceWest, G., Patai, Z. E., Coutrot, A. et al.
2022Reported sleep duration reveals segmentation of the adult life-course into three phasesNature CommunicationsCoutrot, A., Lazar, A. S., Richards, M. et al.
2022Predicting real world spatial disorientation in Alzheimer's disease patients using virtual reality navigation testsScientific ReportsPuthusseryppady, V., Morrissey, S., Spiers, H. J. et al.
2022Developments in scalable strategies for detecting early markers of cognitive declineTranslational PsychiatryWhelan, R., Barbey, F. M., Cominetti, M. R. et al.
2022Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation abilityNatureCoutrot, A., Manley, E., Goodroe, S. et al.
2022Exosomatic Route Choice in Navigation: Evidence from video game player dataProceedings of the 13th Space Syntax SymposiumMcElhinney, S., Zisch, F., Hornsberger, M. et al.
2022How the environment shapes our ability to navigateClinical and Translational MedicineSpiers, H. J., Coutrot, A., & Hornberger, M.
2021Explaining World-Wide Variation in Navigation Ability from Millions of People: Citizen Science Project Sea Hero QuestTopics in Cognitive ScienceSpiers, H. J., Coutrot, A., & Hornberger, M.
2021Capturing and explaining trajectory singularities using composite signal neural networks28th European Signal Processing ConferenceDubois, H., Le Callet, P., Hornberger, M. et al.
2021Computer models of saliency alone fail to predict subjective visual attention to landmarks during observed navigationSpatial Cognition & ComputationYesiltepe, D., Ozbil Torun, A., Coutrot, A. et al.
2021Memory precision of object-location binding is unimpaired in APOE ε4-carriers with spatial navigation deficitsBrain CommunicationsGellerson, H. M., Coughlan, G., Hornberger, M. et al.
2020Navigation ability before and after menopauseAlzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's associationChapin, B.A., Khondoker, M., Coughlan, G. et al.
2020Test-retest reliability of spatial navigation in adults at-risk of Alzheimer's diseasePLoS ONECoughlan, G., Puthusseryppady, V., Lowry, E. et al.
2019Toward personalized cognitive diagnostics of at-genetic-risk Alzheimer's diseasePNASCoughlan, G., Coutrot, A., Khondoker, M. et al.
2019Virtual navigation tested on a mobile app is predictive of real-world wayfinding navigation performancePLoS ONECoutrot, A., Schmidt, S., Coutrot, L. et al.
2018Global determinants of navigation abilityCurrent BiologyCoutrot, A., Silva, R., Manley, E. et al.