Peer-reviewedCC BYCurrent Biology
An abstract relational map emerges in the human medial prefrontal cortex with consolidation
9 affiliations
- 1Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK. Electronic address: [email protected]
- 2Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford
- 3Oxford 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
- 4Department of Excellence for Neural Information Processing, Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany
- 5Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DA, UK
- 6Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, UK
- 7Oxford 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
- 8Oxford 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: [email protected]
- 9Juniorprofessorship of Neuroscience, Faculty of Human Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University of Wuerzburg, Germany
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.
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BibTeX
@article{baram2026abstract,
title = {{An abstract relational map emerges in the human medial prefrontal cortex with consolidation}},
author = {Alon Boaz Baram and Hamed Nili and Ines V. Barreiros and Veronika Samborska and Timothy E.J. Behrens and Mona M. Garvert},
journal = {Current Biology},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - An abstract relational map emerges in the human medial prefrontal cortex with consolidation
AU - Alon Boaz Baram
AU - Hamed Nili
AU - Ines V. Barreiros
AU - Veronika Samborska
AU - Timothy E.J. Behrens
AU - Mona M. Garvert
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/24
JO - Current Biology
DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.068
AB - 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.
SN - 0960-9822
SN - 1879-0445
ER -