Adam Steel^1,2, Caroline Robertson³; ¹University of Illinois, ²Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, ³Dartmouth College

The human brain must integrate visual perception with spatial memory for effective navigation. Recent work has identified place memory areas (PMAs) that process remembered spatial information, positioned anterior to scene perception areas (SPAs) that analyze visual scenes. However, the relationship of the PMAs to the broader cortical hierarchy remains unclear due to limited group-level characterization. We examined PMA and SPA locations across three fMRI datasets (44 participants) that used different acquisition parameters. We identified SPAs in all participants using a standard visual localizer where participants viewed scenes versus faces, and we localized PMAs using a memory task where participants recalled personally familiar places versus familiar faces (Datasets 1-2) or places versus multiple categories (familiar faces, bodies, and objects, and famous faces; Dataset 3). We found PMAs could be consistently localized across datasets and maintained a systematic anterior position relative to SPAs. The relative displacement between PMAs and SPAs was highly reproducible, suggesting a fundamental feature of cortical organization. Group analyses revealed PMAs fall at the boundary between externally-oriented networks (dorsal attention) and internally-oriented networks (default mode), and at an inflection point along the cortical hierarchy between unimodal sensory and amodal, apical regions. Additionally, while SPAs overlapped with retinotopic maps, PMAs were consistently located anterior to mapped visual cortex. These results suggest PMAs represent a transition zone between perceptual and mnemonic systems. We have released probabilistic parcels of these regions to facilitate future research into their roles in spatial cognition.