What happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city?

Updated

As you wander, your visual cortex processes unfamiliar sights, the parahippocampal gyrus recognizes scenes, the entorhinal cortex maps space, the hippocampus tries to build a cognitive map, and the prefrontal cortex plans next moves.

Visual Cortex, Parahippocampal Gyrus, Entorhinal Cortex, Hippocampus, Prefrontal Cortex lit up on the Brain Atlas 3D brain: what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city
Figure. The brain regions that light up when you get lost in a new city, in order: Visual Cortex (unfamiliar sights), then Parahippocampal Gyrus (scene recognition), then Entorhinal Cortex (grid mapping), then Hippocampus (cognitive map), then Prefrontal Cortex (route planning).

Watch it light up on the 3D brain

Brain regions that light up

OrderRegionWhat it does here
1Visual CortexYour visual cortex processes the streams of unfamiliar buildings, cars, and people.
2Parahippocampal GyrusThe parahippocampal gyrus tries to match the scene to any familiar place memory.
3Entorhinal CortexEntorhinal grid cells fire in repeating patterns as you move, charting distance and direction.
4HippocampusYour hippocampus attempts to assemble a cognitive map from these spatial signals.
5Prefrontal CortexThe prefrontal cortex weighs options: turn back, keep going, or ask for help.

1. Visual Cortex: unfamiliar sights

Step 1 of what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city: Visual Cortex lit on the Brain Atlas 3D brain
Figure 1. Visual Cortex, unfamiliar sights: Your visual cortex processes the streams of unfamiliar buildings, cars, and people.

The primary visual cortex extracts edges, orientation, and motion from the scene. This raw visual information is then sent to higher visual areas for more complex processing, such as object and scene recognition. Without this initial analysis, you couldn't perceive the city around you at all.

2. Parahippocampal Gyrus: scene recognition

Step 2 of what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city: Visual Cortex, Parahippocampal Gyrus lit on the Brain Atlas 3D brain
Figure 2. Parahippocampal Gyrus, scene recognition: The parahippocampal gyrus tries to match the scene to any familiar place memory.

The parahippocampal place area (PPA) encodes the spatial layout of scenes and landmarks, such as buildings and streets. It compares the current view with stored representations, but in a new city, no strong match is found, adding to the feeling of unfamiliarity. Damage to this region impairs the ability to recognize places.

3. Entorhinal Cortex: grid mapping

Step 3 of what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city: Visual Cortex, Parahippocampal Gyrus, Entorhinal Cortex lit on the Brain Atlas 3D brain
Figure 3. Entorhinal Cortex, grid mapping: Entorhinal grid cells fire in repeating patterns as you move, charting distance and direction.

Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex create a hexagonal coordinate system for space, updating as you walk. This metric information about distances and directions is sent to the hippocampus, allowing the brain to track your position even without landmarks. Without this, you would have a poor sense of how far you've traveled.

4. Hippocampus: cognitive map

Step 4 of what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city: Visual Cortex, Parahippocampal Gyrus, Entorhinal Cortex, Hippocampus lit on the Brain Atlas 3D brain
Figure 4. Hippocampus, cognitive map: Your hippocampus attempts to assemble a cognitive map from these spatial signals.

Place cells in the hippocampus fire at specific locations, integrating grid cell input with sensory landmarks to form a coherent map of the environment. In an unfamiliar city, this map is incomplete or inaccurate, leading to disorientation. The hippocampus also retrieves memories of similar places, but those may not match.

5. Prefrontal Cortex: route planning

Step 5 of what happens in your brain when you get lost in a new city: Visual Cortex, Parahippocampal Gyrus, Entorhinal Cortex, Hippocampus, Prefrontal Cortex lit on the Brain Atlas 3D brain
Figure 5. Prefrontal Cortex, route planning: The prefrontal cortex weighs options: turn back, keep going, or ask for help.

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex supports working memory, holding the goal of finding your way while evaluating possible routes. It integrates information from the hippocampus and parietal cortex to make decisions under uncertainty. It also inhibits impulsive choices, like randomly wandering, in favor of a more deliberate strategy.

Good to know

  • The anterior cingulate cortex signals conflict when your expected landmarks fail to appear, an early neural marker of being lost.
  • Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex were discovered in rodents and are thought to underlie metric spatial coding in humans as well.
  • The amygdala may activate in response to the stress of being lost, which can impair prefrontal planning and hippocampal memory retrieval.

New city vs familiar route

In a familiar city, the hippocampus retrieves an existing cognitive map, and the caudate may execute the route as a learned habit, requiring little prefrontal effort. In a new city, no map exists, so the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus must build one from scratch, with the prefrontal cortex constantly making decisions.

Test yourself

  1. Which brain region is most important for recognizing a place as unfamiliar?

  2. Where are grid cells, which provide a metric for space, located?

  3. Which region detects the mismatch that tells you something is wrong when you're lost?

0 of 3 answered · 0 correct

Simplified: many regions work together at once, and this shows the main players in the order they act.