Abstract representations of location and facing direction in the human brain
Humans, like other mobile organisms, rely on spatial representations to guide navigation from place to place. Although previous work has identified neural systems involved in wayfinding, the specific spatial codes supported by these systems are not well understood. We use functional magnetic resonan...
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Published in | The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 33; no. 14; pp. 6133 - 6142 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Society for Neuroscience
03.04.2013
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Humans, like other mobile organisms, rely on spatial representations to guide navigation from place to place. Although previous work has identified neural systems involved in wayfinding, the specific spatial codes supported by these systems are not well understood. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify regions within the human medial temporal and medial parietal lobes that encode two fundamental spatial quantities-location and facing direction-in a manner that abstracts away from sensory inputs. University students were scanned while viewing photographs taken at several familiar campus locations. Multivoxel pattern analyses indicated that the left presubiculum, retrosplenial complex, and parietal-occipital sulcus coded location identity even across non-overlapping views, whereas the right presubiculum coded facing direction even across noncontiguous locations. The location and direction codes supported by these regions may be critical to our ability to navigate within the extended environment and to understand its large-scale spatial structure. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Author contributions: L.K.V. and R.A.E. designed research; L.K.V. and R.A.E. performed research; L.K.V. and R.A.E. analyzed data; L.K.V. and R.A.E. wrote the paper. |
ISSN: | 0270-6474 1529-2401 1529-2401 |
DOI: | 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3873-12.2013 |