Where in the brain is abstract map generated? It is the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), working together!! Here is our new finding published in @Nature Prefrontal and lateral entorhinal neurons co-dependently learn item–outcome rules Heechul Jun†, Jason Y. Lee†, Nicholas R. Bleza, Ayana Ichii, Jordan D. Donohue & Kei M. Igarashi* Nature (2024) nature.com/articles/s41586-0… When you learn new items, your learned knowledge is sorted into an “internal map” of the brain. An internal map, also called as an “abstract map”, is made of population activity of many neurons. In this new work led by Heechul Jun @jun_heechul and Jason Lee @jasonyensunlee, we found that the LEC deep layers and mPFC co-dependently generate abstract map during learning. These two areas had bidiretional anatomical connections, making a loop circuit. Inhibition of the LEC disrupted the abstract map in the mPFC, and mPFC inhibition deleted LEC abstract map. Our message is: LEC and mPFC are best friends! @AnatomyNeurobio @UCIMedSchool @uci_bme @UCIEngineering @UCI_NeurCircuit @ucicnlm @ucimind @UCIrvineNews @UCIrvine