Environmental Barriers Disrupt Grid-like Representations in Humans during Navigation
Open accessAbstract
Environmental barriers fundamentally shape our behavior and conceptualization of space [1-5]. Evidence from rodents suggests that, in contrast to an open-field environment, where grid cells exhibit firing patterns with a 6-fold rotational symmetry [5, 6], barriers within the field abolish the 6-fold symmetry and fragment the grid firing fields into compartmentalized repeating "submaps" [5]. These results suggest that barriers may exert their influence on the cognitive map through organization of the metric representation of space provided by entorhinal neurons. We directly tested this hypothesis in humans, combining functional MRI with a virtual navigation paradigm in which we manipulated the local barrier structure. When participants performed a fixed-route foraging task in an open field, the functional MRI signal in right entorhinal cortex exhibited a 6-fold periodic modulation by movement direction associated with conjunctive grid cell firing [7]. However, when environments were compartmentalized by barriers, the grid-like 6-fold spatial metric was abolished. Instead, a 4-fold modulation of the entorhinal signal was observed, consistent with a vectorized organization of spatial metrics predicted by rodent models of navigation [5]. Collectively, these results provide mechanistic insight into why barriers compartmentalize our cognitive map, indicating that boundaries exert a powerful influence on the way environments are represented in human entorhinal cortex. Given that our daily environments are rarely wide open and are often segmented by barriers (e.g., the buildings of our home city), our findings have implications for applying models of cognitive mapping based on grid-like metrics [8] to naturalistic circumstances.
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Real-world spaces are segmented by physical barriers that yield various substructures or regions.
“Real-world spaces are segmented by physical barriers that yield various substructures or regions 41,[130][131][132][133] .”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [131]
The involvement of grid cells in the extraction of a gist, and ultimately a schema, is supported by fMRI evidence showing that barriers that segment an environment modulate activity in several brain regions, including human ERC.
“As discussed below, the involvement of grid cells in the extraction of a gist, and ultimately a schema, is supported by fMRI evidence showing that the presence of barriers that segment an environment modulates activity in several brain regions, including human ERC 131 .”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [131]
The structure of the environment has a strong impact on how the brain organizes its representation of space.
“indicating that the structure of the environment has a strong impact on how the brain organizes its representation of space.”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [131]
Human ERC grid-cell-like activity shifts from 6-fold rotational symmetry in an open arena to 4-fold rotational symmetry in an environment compartmentalized by barriers.
“Recent fMRI research has revealed that, like rodent grid cells, human ERC grid-cell-like activity shifts from 6-fold rotational symmetry in an open arena to 4-fold rotational symmetry in an environment compartmentalized by barriers 131 indicating that the structure of the environment has a strong impact on how the brain organizes its representation of space.”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [131]
The regionalization of space provides an efficient heuristic for planning actions in spatial navigation.
“The regionalization of space provides an efficient heuristic for planning actions in spatial navigation 29,131,159,205,206 , and computational models are particularly useful in understanding the correlations between physical regions and substructures, and their representations in the brain.”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [131]
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- Authors
- He, Q., & Brown, T. I.
- Affiliations
- Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- He, Qiliang
- Brown, Thackery I.
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-08
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 16
- Pages
- 2718-2722.e3
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7123550
- OpenAlex
- W2965117909
- Cited by
- 52
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 1.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
- National Institute on Aging
- NIH (1-R21AG063131)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Spatial Cognition and Navigation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Urban Design and Spatial Analysis
- Keywords
- environmental barriers, grid cells, entorhinal cortex, cognitive maps, spatial navigation, virtual navigation, human spatial cognition
- MeSH terms
- Grid Cells, Adult, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Entorhinal Cortex, Spatial Navigation
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