This study investigates how humans process hierarchical structures. Using a novel paradigm, the authors show that the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) encode hierarchical contexts similarly to how animals navigate spatial hierarchies. The study also replicates previous findings showing that the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is crucial for processing hierarchies in language and music and that IFG activity increases with task familiarity. These results suggest that while animals and humans share basic hierarchical processing abilities, humans possess enhanced neural circuits for managing complex, abstract representations.

Scholz, R., Villringer, A., & Martins, M. J. D. (2023). Distinct hippocampal and cortical contributions in the representation of hierarchies. eLife. doi.org/10.7554/eLife.87075.1