{"title":"Cognitive maps for hierarchical spaces in the human brain.","authors":"Michael Peer, Russell A Epstein","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf261","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many of the environments that we navigate through every day are hierarchically organized-they consist of spaces nested within other spaces. How do our mind/brains represent such environments? To address this question, we familiarized participants with a virtual environment consisting of a building within a courtyard, with objects distributed throughout the courtyard and building interior. We then scanned them with functional MRI (fMRI) while they performed a memory task that required them to think about spatial relationships within and across the subspaces. Behavioral responses were less accurate and response times were longer on trials requiring integration across the subspaces compared to trials not requiring integration. FMRI response differences between integration and non-integration trials were observed in scene-responsive and medial temporal lobe brain regions, which were correlated the behavioral integration effects in retrosplenial complex, occipital place area, and hippocampus. Multivoxel pattern analyses provided additional evidence for representations in these brain regions that reflected the hierarchical organization of the environment. These results indicate that people form cognitive maps of nested spaces by dividing them into subspaces and using an active cognitive process to integrate the subspaces. Similar mechanisms might be used to support hierarchical coding in memory more broadly.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12452280/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cerebral cortex","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf261","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"NEUROSCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Many of the environments that we navigate through every day are hierarchically organized-they consist of spaces nested within other spaces. How do our mind/brains represent such environments? To address this question, we familiarized participants with a virtual environment consisting of a building within a courtyard, with objects distributed throughout the courtyard and building interior. We then scanned them with functional MRI (fMRI) while they performed a memory task that required them to think about spatial relationships within and across the subspaces. Behavioral responses were less accurate and response times were longer on trials requiring integration across the subspaces compared to trials not requiring integration. FMRI response differences between integration and non-integration trials were observed in scene-responsive and medial temporal lobe brain regions, which were correlated the behavioral integration effects in retrosplenial complex, occipital place area, and hippocampus. Multivoxel pattern analyses provided additional evidence for representations in these brain regions that reflected the hierarchical organization of the environment. These results indicate that people form cognitive maps of nested spaces by dividing them into subspaces and using an active cognitive process to integrate the subspaces. Similar mechanisms might be used to support hierarchical coding in memory more broadly.
期刊介绍:
Cerebral Cortex publishes papers on the development, organization, plasticity, and function of the cerebral cortex, including the hippocampus. Studies with clear relevance to the cerebral cortex, such as the thalamocortical relationship or cortico-subcortical interactions, are also included.
The journal is multidisciplinary and covers the large variety of modern neurobiological and neuropsychological techniques, including anatomy, biochemistry, molecular neurobiology, electrophysiology, behavior, artificial intelligence, and theoretical modeling. In addition to research articles, special features such as brief reviews, book reviews, and commentaries are included.