Processing of different spatial scales in the human brain

Humans navigate across a range of spatial scales, from rooms to continents, but the brain systems underlying spatial cognition are usually investigated only in small-scale environments. Do the same brain systems represent and process larger spaces? Here we asked subjects to compare distances between...

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Bibliographic Details
Published ineLife Vol. 8
Main Authors Peer, Michael, Ron, Yorai, Monsa, Rotem, Arzy, Shahar
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 10.09.2019
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subjects
Adult
Animal behavior
Brain
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Cognition
Cortex
cortical gradient
default-mode network
Diagnostic imaging
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Healthy Volunteers
Humans
Information processing
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neuroscience
OPA
Orientation, Spatial
Parahippocampal gyrus
Physiological aspects
PPA
RSC
Space Perception
spatial scale
Visual system
Young Adult
United States
Jerusalem Israel
Israel
PPA
OPA
RSC
cortical gradient
neuroscience
default-mode network
spatial scale
human
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Summary:Humans navigate across a range of spatial scales, from rooms to continents, but the brain systems underlying spatial cognition are usually investigated only in small-scale environments. Do the same brain systems represent and process larger spaces? Here we asked subjects to compare distances between real-world items at six different spatial scales (room, building, neighborhood, city, country, continent) under functional MRI. Cortical activity showed a gradual progression from small to large scale processing, along three gradients extending anteriorly from the parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial complex (RSC) and occipital place area (OPA), and along the hippocampus posterior-anterior axis. Each of the cortical gradients overlapped with the visual system posteriorly and the default-mode network (DMN) anteriorly. These results suggest a progression from concrete to abstract processing with increasing spatial scale, and offer a new organizational framework for the brain’s spatial system, that may also apply to conceptual spaces beyond the spatial domain.
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ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.47492