Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Progress
  • Published:

Remembering the past to imagine the future: the prospective brain

Abstract

A rapidly growing number of recent studies show that imagining the future depends on much of the same neural machinery that is needed for remembering the past. These findings have led to the concept of the prospective brain; an idea that a crucial function of the brain is to use stored information to imagine, simulate and predict possible future events. We suggest that processes such as memory can be productively re-conceptualized in light of this idea.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The core brain system that mediates past and future thinking.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ingvar, D. H. 'Memory of the future': an essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Hum. Neurobiol. 4, 127–136 (1985).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Fuster, J. M. The Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Physiology, and the Frontal Lobe. (Raven Press, New York, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Knight, R. T. & Grabowecky, M. in The New Cognitive Neurosciences (ed. Gazzaniga, M. S.) 1319–1339 (MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Mesulam, M. M. in Principles of Frontal Lobe Function (eds Stuss, D. T. & Knight, R. T.) 8–30 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 2002).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Stuss, D. T. & Benson, D. F. The Frontal Lobes. (Raven Press, New York, 1986).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Shallice, T. & Burgess, P. The domain of supervisory processes and the temporal organization of behaviour. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. 351, 1405–1411 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Tulving, E. Elements of Episodic Memory. (Clarendon Press, Oxford England, 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Tulving, E. Memory and consciousness. Can. Psychol. 26, 1–12 (1985).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Tulving, E. in The Missing Link in Cognition (eds Terrace, H. S. & Metcalfe, J.) 3–56 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Clayton, N. S., Bussey, T. J. & Dickinson, A. Can animals recall the past and plan for the future? Nature Rev. Neurosci. 4, 685–691 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Suddendorf, T. & Corballis, M. C. Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind. Genet. Soc. Gen. Psychol. Monogr. 123, 133–167 (1997).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Suddendorf, T. & Corballis, M. C. The evolution of foresight: what is mental time travel, and is it unique to human? Behav. Brain Sci. (in the press).

  13. Clayton, N. S. & Dickinson, A. Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub jays. Nature 395, 272–274 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Raby, C. R., Alexis, D. M., Dickinson, A. & Clayton, N. S. Planning for the future by western scrub-jays. Nature 445, 919–921 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Correia, S. P. C., Dickinson, A. & Clayton, N. S. Western scrub-jays anticipate future needs independently of their current motivational state. Curr. Biol. 17, 856–861 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Atance, C. M. & O'Neill, D. K. The emergence of episodic future thinking in humans. Learn. Motiv. 36, 126–144 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Suddendorf, T. & Busby, J. Making decisions with the future in mind: developmental and comparative identification of mental time travel. Learn. Motiv. 36, 110–125 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Talland, G. A. Deranged Memory: A Psychonomic Study of the Amnesic Syndrome. (Academic Press, New York, 1965).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Klein, S. B. & Loftus, J. Memory and temporal experience: the effects of episodic memory loss on an amnesic patient's ability to remember the past and imagine the future. Soc. Cogn. 20, 353–379 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Vann, S. D. & Maguire, E. A. Patients with hippocampal amnesia cannot imagine new experiences. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 1726–1731 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Williams, J. M. et al. The specificity of autobiographical memory and imageability of the future. Mem. Cognit. 24, 116–125 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. D'Argembeau. A., Raffard, S. & Van der Linden, M. Remembering the past and imagining the future in schizophrenia. J. Abnorm. Psychol. (in the press).

  23. Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T. & Schacter, D. L. Age-related changes in the episodic simulation of future events. Psychol. Sci. (in the press).

  24. Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G. & Moscovitch, M. Aging and autobiographical memory: dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychol. Aging 17, 677–689 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Spreng, R. N. & Levine, B. The temporal distribution of past and future autobiographical events across the lifespan. Mem. Cognit. 34, 1644–1651 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Okuda, J., et al. Thinking of the future and the past: the roles of the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes. NeuroImage 19, 1369–1380 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Szpunar, K. K., Watson, J. M. & McDermott, K. B. Neural substrates of envisioning the future. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 642–647 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T. & Schacter, D. L. Remembering the past and imagining the future: common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration. Neuropsychologia 45, 1363–1377 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Moscovitch, M. Memory and working-with-memory: a component process model based on modules and central systems. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 4, 257–267 (1992).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Cabeza, R. & St. Jacques, P. Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 219–227 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Maguire, E. A. Neuroimaging studies of autobiographical event memory. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. 356, 1441–1451 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Buckner, R. L. & Carroll, D. C. Self-projection and the brain. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 49–57 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Wagner, A. D., Shannon, B. J., Kahn, I. & Buckner, R. L. Parietal lobe contributions to episodic memory retrieval. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9, 445–453 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Greicius, M. D., Srivastava, G., Reiss, A. L. & Menon, V. Default-mode network activity distinguishes Alzheimer's disease from healthy aging: evidence from functional MRI. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 101, 4637–4642 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Vincent, J. L., et al. Coherent spontaneous activity identifies a hippocampal–parietal memory network. J. Neurophysiol. 96, 3517–3531 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Schacter, D. L. & Addis, D. R. The cognitive neuroscience of constructive memory: remembering the past and imagining the future. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. 362, 773–786 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Schacter, D. L. & Addis, D. R. The ghosts of past and future. Nature 445, 27 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Szpunar, K. K. & McDermott, K. B. Episodic future thought and its relation to remembering: evidence from ratings of subjective experience. Conscious Cogn. 29 May 2007 (doi:10.1016/j.concog.2007.04.006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Eichenbaum, H. & Cohen, N. J. From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory Systems of the Brain (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  40. Saxe, R. & Kanwisher, N. People thinking about thinking people: the role of the temporo–parietal junction in theory of mind. NeuroImage 19, 1835–1842 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Byrne, P., Becker, S. & Burgess, N. Remembering the past and imagining the future: a neural model of spatial memory and imagery. Psychol. Rev. 114, 340–375 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Hassabis, D. & Maguire, E. A. Deconstructing episodic memory with construction. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 299–306 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Bar, M. The proactive brain: using analogies and associations to generate predictions. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 280–289 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Gilbert, D. T. Stumbling on Happiness. (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  45. Hawkins, J. & Blakesee, S. On Intelligence. (Times Books, New York, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The preparation of this paper was supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We thank A. Wong for invaluable aid with preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel L. Schacter.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Related links

Related links

FURTHER INFORMATION

Daniel L. Schacter's homepage

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Schacter, D., Addis, D. & Buckner, R. Remembering the past to imagine the future: the prospective brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 8, 657–661 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2213

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2213

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing