Cognitive maps enable efficient inferences from limited experience that can guide novel decisions. We tested whether the hippocampus (HC), entorhinal cortex (EC), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)/medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) organize abstract and discrete relational information into a cognitive map to guide novel inferences. Subjects learned the status of people in two unseen 2D social hierarchies, with each dimension learned on a separate day. Although one dimension was behaviorally relevant, multivariate activity patterns in HC, EC, and vmPFC/mOFC were linearly related to the Euclidean distance between people in the mentally reconstructed 2D space. Hubs created unique comparisons between the hierarchies, enabling inferences between novel pairs. We found that both behavior and neural activity in EC and vmPFC/mOFC reflected the Euclidean distance to the retrieved hub, which was reinstated in HC. These findings reveal how abstract and discrete relational structures are represented, are combined, and enable novel inferences in the human brain.

认知地图可以从有限的经验中进行有效的推理，从而指导新的决策。我们测试了海马体 (HC)、内嗅皮层 (EC) 和腹内侧前额叶皮层 (vmPFC)/内侧眶额皮层 (mOFC) 是否将抽象和离散的关系信息组织成认知图以指导新的推理。受试者在两个看不见的 2D 社会等级中学习人们的状态，每个维度都在单独的一天学习。尽管一维与行为相关，但 HC、EC 和 vmPFC/mOFC 中的多元活动模式与心理重建的 2D 空间中人与人之间的欧几里德距离呈线性相关。Hubs 在层次结构之间创建了独特的比较，从而能够在新的对之间进行推断。我们发现 EC 和 vmPFC/mOFC 中的行为和神经活动都反映了到检索到的集线器的欧几里德距离，这在 HC 中恢复了。这些发现揭示了抽象和离散的关系结构是如何表示、组合的，以及如何在人脑中进行新的推理。