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Updated: May 29, 2025

Modeling the Functional Network for Spatial Navigation in the Human Brain
Published on: October 13, 2023
The medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex jointly represent the cognitive map of task space
Liwei Tan1, Yidan Qiu1, Lixin Qiu1
1School of Psychology; Center for Studies of Psychological Application; Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education; South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Abstract:
A cognitive map is an internal model of the world's causal structure, crucial for adaptive behaviors. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is central node to decision-making and cognitive map representation. However, it remains unclear how the medial OFC (mOFC) and lateral OFC (lOFC) contribute to the formation of cognitive maps in humans. By performing a multi-step sequential task and multivariate analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we found that the mOFC and lOFC play complementary but dissociable roles in this process. Specifically, the mOFC represents all hidden task state components. The lOFC and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) encode abstract rules governing structure knowledge across task states. Furthermore, the two orbitofrontal subregions are functionally connected to share state-hidden information for constructing a representation of the task structure. Collectively, these findings provide an account that can increase our understanding of how the brain constructs abstract cognitive maps in a task-relevant space.
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