Expanded Group-Constrained Parcels Enhance Coverage and Reproducibility of the Scene-Selective Cortex

A common approach for investigating high-level visual cortex with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is to define regions of interest (ROIs) in individual participants using functional activation clusters and anatomical landmarks. Although highly productive, this approach requires manual decisions about which clusters correspond to specific canonical regions, limiting reproducibility and posing challenges in populations with lower signal-to-noise ratios, such as children. The Group-Constrained Subject-Specific (GSS) approach reduces this subjectivity by using group-level parcels to constrain subject-specific functional ROI definition. However, the original GSS parcel set provides limited coverage of the occipital place area (OPA) and does not include more recently characterized scene-selective regions. Here, we introduce an updated and expanded set of GSS parcels for scene-selective cortex. Using a larger adult sample and dynamic scene stimuli, we generated updated parcels for OPA, parahippocampal place area (PPA), and retrosplenial complex (RSC), and for the first time, delineated a parcel for a newly discovered scene-selective region in the superior parietal lobule (superior place area; SPA). We evaluated these parcels in independent adult and pediatric datasets by testing whether they improve cross-subject coverage while preserving functional selectivity. The updated OPA parcel increased cross-subject coverage relative to the original parcel by Julian and colleagues. Moreover, ROIs defined using the updated parcels showed equal or greater scene selectivity across OPA, PPA, and RSC, indicating improved functional ROI definition without sacrificing specificity. Across scene-selective regions, the updated parcels reliably identified scene-selective cortex and reproduced canonical response profiles and in pediatric data. These parcels provide more complete and reliable coverage of the scene-processing network, supporting objective and reproducible ROI definition across adult and pediatric fMRI datasets. HighlightsO_LIExpanded group-constrained parcels improve coverage of scene-selective cortex C_LIO_LIDynamic stimuli yield improved cross-subject overlap for OPA C_LIO_LINew parcel introduced for the scene-selective region in the superior parietal lobule, now called superior place area (SPA) C_LIO_LIUpdated parcels reproduce canonical response profiles in adult data C_LIO_LIParcels reliably identify scene-selective voxels in pediatric datasets C_LI