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Over the last few years, the study of spatial cognition and its decline with aging has developed significantly with the introduction of virtual reality (VR) technologies, which simulate everyday navigation activities in naturalistic environments. The aim of this article is to describe the recent results obtained by this new way of investigation, in the domain of the mechanisms of spatial learning and navigation in normal aging and Alzheimer disease (AD). This review highlights the recent advances allowed by VR and the next research perspectives, particularly in the domains of the study of the relations between cognition and action, as well as the neural correlates of spatial cognition allowed by the association between VR and cerebral functional imaging.