A double dissociation between semantic and spatial cognition in visual to default network pathways

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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DOI

  • Tirso R J Gonzalez Alam
  • Katya Krieger-Redwood
    University of York
  • Dominika Varga
    University of Sussex
  • Zhiyao Gao
    Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
  • Aidan J Horner
    University of York
  • Tom Hartley
    University of York
  • Michel Thiebaut de Schotten
    University of Bordeaux
  • Magdalena Sliwinska
    Liverpool John Moores University
  • David Pitcher
    University of York
  • Daniel S Margulies
    Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (UMR 8002
  • Jonathan Smallwood
    Queen's University
  • Elizabeth Jefferies
    University of York

Processing pathways between sensory and default mode network (DMN) regions support recognition, navigation, and memory but their organisation is not well understood. We show that functional subdivisions of visual cortex and DMN sit at opposing ends of parallel streams of information processing that support visually mediated semantic and spatial cognition, providing convergent evidence from univariate and multivariate task responses, intrinsic functional and structural connectivity. Participants learned virtual environments consisting of buildings populated with objects, drawn from either a single semantic category or multiple categories. Later, they made semantic and spatial context decisions about these objects and buildings during functional magnetic resonance imaging. A lateral ventral occipital to fronto-temporal DMN pathway was primarily engaged by semantic judgements, while a medial visual to medial temporal DMN pathway supported spatial context judgements. These pathways had distinctive locations in functional connectivity space: the semantic pathway was both further from unimodal systems and more balanced between visual and auditory-motor regions compared with the spatial pathway. When semantic and spatial context information could be integrated (in buildings containing objects from a single category), regions at the intersection of these pathways responded, suggesting that parallel processing streams interact at multiple levels of the cortical hierarchy to produce coherent memory-guided cognition.

Keywords

  • Humans, Male, Female, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cognition/physiology, Semantics, Adult, Young Adult, Visual Cortex/physiology, Default Mode Network/physiology, Brain Mapping
Original languageEnglish
JournalElife
Volume13
Early online date22 Jan 2025
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 22 Jan 2025
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