Naturalistic spatial education engages distinct neural processes for mental rotation, cognitive load, and linguistic demands

Neuroscience studies typically isolate spatial cognition using simplified tasks targeting a single cognitive process. However, during formal spatial education, the brain rarely performs one cognitive operation at a time. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess neural systems involved in dynamically processing an educational spatial visualization lesson. We quantified lesson content using an instructional-design framework capturing variation in spatial complexity, cognitive load, and verbal density. We then characterized how instructional demands modulated brain function using content-evoked responses, functional connectivity, and network-centrality. Spatial transformations during instruction robustly recruited parietal and premotor regions, which were linearly modulated by spatial complexity. This parietal dominance aligns with theories that these areas encode geometric and quantitative dimensions. In contrast, domain-general frontal activity tracked overall processing demands, and language regions tracked verbal density. Activity also varied with learners’ spatial abilities: higher spatial performers showed stronger modulation of parietal and premotor regions as spatial demands increased, and greater domain-general modulation across content types. Thus, the same circuitry representing spatial transformations during instruction also reflects individual variation in spatial cognition. Parietal regions showed the highest centrality and strongest within-network coherence, marking them as the central hub of the system, and distinguishing them from less central and less coherent domain-general regions. Together, the findings reveal how the brain dynamically decomposes complex spatial instruction, preserving parietal-centered spatial processing, while coordinating support from premotor, domain-general, and language systems. These findings begin to reveal how spatial cognition operates within the complexity of formal instruction.