Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:09:41.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prospection or projection: Neurobiological basis of stimulus-independent mental traveling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2007

Jiro Okuda
Jiro Okuda
Affiliation:
Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute, Machida, Tokyo 194–8610, [email protected]://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/executive_functions/People/Jiro.html Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology Department, University College London, London WC1 N 3AR, United Kingdom.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The number of studies concerning the neurobiology of human prospection is now rapidly exploding. Recent works suggest that prospection can be better understood in a broader context of self-projection into other times, places, or agents that can share the same cerebral basis involving medial aspects of prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortices. Mental time travel may be extended more generally to “mental traveling,” accomplished by stimulus-independent mental processes typical of human thought.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , June 2007 , pp. 328 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T. & Schacter, D. L. (2007) Remembering the past and imagining the future: Common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration. Neuropsychologia 45(7):1363–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buckner, R. L. & Carroll, D. C. (2007) Self-projection and the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(2):49–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burgess, P. W., Gilbert, S. J., Dumontheil, I. & Simons, J. S. (2005) The gateway hypothesis of rostral prefrontal cortex (area 10) function. In: Speed, control, and age: In honour of Patrick Rabbitt, ed. Duncan, J., Phillips, L. & MacLeod, P., pp. 217–48. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burgess, P. W., Gilbert, S. J., Okuda, J. & Simons, J. S. (2006) Rostral prefrontal brain regions (area 10): A gateway between inner thought and the external world? In: Disorders of volition, ed. Prinz, W. & Sebanz, N., pp. 373–95. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, S. J., Dumontheil, I., Simons, J. S., Frith, C. D. & Burgess, P. W. (2007) Comment on “Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought.” Science 317:43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Vann, S. D. & Maguire, E. A. (2007) Patients with hippocampal amnesia cannot imagine new experiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(5):1726–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mason, M. F., Norton, M. I., Van Horn, J. D., Wegner, D. M., Grafton, S. T. & Macrae, C. N. (2007a) Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought. Science 315:393–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mason, M. F., Norton, M. I., Van Horn, J. D., Wegner, D. M., Grafton, S. T. & Macrae, C. N. (2007b) Response to comment on “Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought.” Science 317:43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okuda, J., Fujii, T., Ohtake, H., Tsukiura, T., Tanji, K., Suzuki, K., Kawashima, R., Fukuda, H., Itoh, M. & Yamadori, A. (2003) Thinking of the future and past: The roles of the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes. Neuroimage 19:1369–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Okuda, J., Fujii, T., Ohtake, H., Tsukiura, T., Yamadori, A., Frith, C. D. & Burgess, P. W. (2007) Differential involvement of regions of rostral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 10) in time- and event-based prospective memory. International Journal of Psychophysiology 64:233–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szpunar, K. K., Watson, J. M. & McDermott, K. B. (2007) Neural substrates of envisioning the future. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(2):642–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tulving, E. (1983) Elements of episodic memory. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Tulving, E. (1993) What is episodic memory? Current Directions in Psychological Science 2(3):67–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tulving, E. (2005) Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human? In: The missing link in cognition: Origins of self-reflective consciousness, ed. Terrace, H. S. & Metcalfe, J., pp. 3–56. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar