Allocentric representation in the human amygdala and ventral visual stream

Hallvard Røe Evensmoen, Lars M. Rimol, Anderson M. Winkler, Richard Betzel, Tor Ivar Hansen, Hamed Nili, Asta Håberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex are considered the main brain structures for allocentric representation of the external environment. Here, we show that the amygdala and the ventral visual stream are involved in allocentric representation. Thirty-one young men explored 35 virtual environments during high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and were subsequently tested on recall of the allocentric pattern of the objects in each environment—in other words, the positions of the objects relative to each other and to the outer perimeter. We find increasingly unique brain activation patterns associated with increasing allocentric accuracy in distinct neural populations in the perirhinal cortex, parahippocampal cortex, fusiform cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and entorhinal cortex. In contrast to the traditional view of a hierarchical MTL network with the hippocampus at the top, we demonstrate, using recently developed graph analyses, a hierarchical allocentric MTL network without a main connector hub.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number108658
JournalCell reports
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 19 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors

Keywords

  • cognitive map
  • consolidation
  • encoding
  • functional connectivity
  • global efficiency
  • memory
  • multi-voxel pattern analysis
  • neuroimaging
  • parahippocampal place area
  • post-stimulus

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