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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.02.04.636440

Spatial coding supports auditory conceptual navigation

Jasmin, K.·Bullock, M.·Dick, F.·Atkins, R.·Bottini, R.·Sigismondi, F.·Tierney, A. T.
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Abstract

Grid cells in human entorhinal cortex encode spatial layouts for real-world navigation, yet their role in conceptual navigation remains unclear. Here we show that mentally transforming tones within a purely auditory pitch-duration space engages spatial circuits, and that such resources are causally necessary. In Experiment 1, participants trained for five days to navigate through a purely conceptual pitch-duration auditory space, then underwent fMRI on Day 6. We observed a six-fold modulation of entorhinal BOLD signals aligned to each participants trajectory angles, similar to grid-cell firing in physical space. Stronger grid-like coding predicted larger training-related gains. In Experiment 2, a new cohort performed the same task under either a spatial or non-spatial interference load. Only the spatial condition selectively disrupted performance on trials requiring mental "movement," indicating a causal reliance on spatial resources. These findings provide evidence that auditory conceptual transformations recruit--and depend on--spatial grid-like computations in the entorhinal-hippocampal system, pointing to a domain-general role for spatial coding in organizing new knowledge along continuous dimensions.

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Jasmin, K., Bullock, M., Dick, F., Atkins, R., Bottini, R., Sigismondi, F., Tierney, A. T.. 2025-02-04. Spatial coding supports auditory conceptual navigation. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.04.636440

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