{
  "abstract": "Understanding the structure of a problem, such as the relationships between stimuli, supports fast learning and flexible reasoning. Rodent work has suggested that the abstraction of structure away from sensory details occurs over the course of multiple days in the cortex. However, direct evidence of such explicit relational representations in humans is scarce, and it is unclear whether they emerge on similar timescales. Here, we combine a graph-learning paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look for such a relational map in the human brain. We first trained participants on two associative graphs with the same structure. We then scanned participants twice while they used this knowledge, with several days between scanning sessions. Using fMRI repetition suppression, we found an abstract relational representation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that emerged across the two scanning sessions. This finding was also replicated using representational similarity analysis (RSA). These results shed new light on how neural representations organizing relational knowledge change with time.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK. Electronic address: alon.baram@ndcn.ox.ac.uk",
    "Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford",
    "Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK; Institute for Neural Information Processing, Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Falkenried 94, 20251 Hamburg, Germany",
    "Department of Excellence for Neural Information Processing, Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany",
    "Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK",
    "Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, UK",
    "Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK; Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, UCL, 25 Howland St, London W1T 4JG, UK",
    "Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK; Junior professorship of Neuroscience, Faculty of Human Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, Germany. Electronic address: mona.garvert@uni-wuerzburg.de",
    "Juniorprofessorship of Neuroscience, Faculty of Human Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University of Wuerzburg, Germany"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Alon Boaz Baram",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6022-137X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Hamed Nili",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6629-7957"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Ines V. Barreiros",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4610-9856"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        5
      ],
      "name": "Veronika Samborska",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6889-159X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6,
        5
      ],
      "name": "Timothy E.J. Behrens",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0048-1177"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7,
        8
      ],
      "name": "Mona M. Garvert",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8678-5536"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6y4wkbdsfh5dz.bib",
  "cited_by": 9,
  "doi": "10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "6y4wkbdsfh5dz",
  "issns": [
    "0960-9822",
    "1879-0445"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W4403329510",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC7619258",
  "pmid": "42341750",
  "published": "2026-06-24",
  "publisher": "Elsevier BV",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6y4wkbdsfh5dz.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:53Z",
      "native_id": "W4403329510",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "An abstract relational map emerges in the human medial prefrontal cortex with consolidation",
  "title_text": "An abstract relational map emerges in the human medial prefrontal cortex with consolidation",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T13:21:12Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6y4wkbdsfh5dz",
  "venue": "Current Biology",
  "versions": []
}