Hemispheric dominance for scene perception differs across different components of the navigation network.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Topographical disorientation, a symptom of impaired navigation, typically follows occipitotemporal brain damage.
• Lesions causing disorientation are often bilateral, but right-hemisphere damage is more strongly associated with this deficit.
• Neuroimaging studies on scene perception and spatial navigation often overlook right-hemisphere dominance due to methodological limitations in detecting brain asymmetry.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify brain asymmetries in scene perception using advanced methods suitable for detecting subtle biases.
• To investigate the lateralization of perceptual and semantic nodes within the scene perception network.
• To explore the role of the retrosplenial cortex in scene perception and spatial navigation.

Main Methods:

• Quantification of brain asymmetries for scene perception in a large, diverse sample, including non-right-handed individuals.
• Region of interest analysis to examine specific nodes within the scene perception network.
• Utilizing threshold-independent methods to accurately visualize and quantify brain asymmetry.

Main Results:

• A weak but consistent right hemispheric bias was observed in scene perception.
• Region of interest analysis yielded limited support for differential lateralization of perceptual and semantic nodes.
• The most prominent right dominance was found in the retrosplenial cortex, challenging existing models of its function.

Conclusions:

• The study highlights the utility of advanced methods for quantifying brain asymmetry in understanding functional specialization within brain networks.
• Findings suggest a right-hemispheric bias in scene perception, with a notable role for the retrosplenial cortex.
• Publicly available datasets are valuable resources for future research into the functional neuroanatomy of scene perception.