Researchers at the Queensland Brain Institute have discovered that a small group of neurons packed in the human brain's parietal cortex dedicated to keeping track of where a person thinks they are headed based on landmarks. Naturally, damage to this area from Alzheimer's, stroke and other brain issues can severely disrupt this very important aspect of a person's ability to navigate. It's possible this new insight could have an impact on machine and robotic navigation by emphasising the importance of this function to software designers and encourage them to allocate special resources to collect and store heading information in an area dedicated to this important, and possibly under-appreciated function.