Thinking of the future and past: the roles of the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes

Human lesion data have indicated that the frontal polar area might be critically involved in having an insight into one's future. Retrospective memory mediated by medial temporal lobes and related structures, on the other hand, could be used to extract one's future prospects efficiently. In the present study, we investigated the roles of these two brain structures in thinking of the future and past by using positron emission tomography (PET) and a naturalistic task setting. We measured regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in healthy subjects while they were talking about their future prospects or past experiences, with regard to two different temporal windows (in years or days). Many areas in the frontal and the medial temporal lobes were activated during the future and past tasks compared with a control task requiring semantic retrieval. Among these, areas in anteromedial frontal pole showed greater activation during the future tasks than during the past tasks, showing significant effect of temporal distance from the present. Most areas in the medial temporal lobes showed greater or equivalent level of activations during the future tasks compared with the past tasks. The present results suggest that thinking of the future is closely related to retrospective memory, but that specific areas in the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes are more involved with thinking of the future than that of the past.

[1]  S. T. Buckland,et al.  An Introduction to the Bootstrap , 1994 .

[2]  J. Gabrieli,et al.  The frontopolar cortex and human cognition: Evidence for a rostrocaudal hierarchical organization within the human prefrontal cortex , 2000, Psychobiology.

[3]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[4]  J. Harlow.  Passage of an Iron Rod Through the Head , 1999 .

[5]  J. Fuster.  The Prefrontal Cortex , 1997 .

[6]  A. Damasio,et al.  Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[7]  M Moscovitch,et al.  Hippocampal complex and retrieval of recent and very remote autobiographical memories: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging in neurologically intact people , 2001, Hippocampus.

[8]  Donald T. Stuss,et al.  The Frontal Lobes and Control of Cognition and Memory , 2019, The Frontal Lobes Revisited.

[9]  T. Robbins,et al.  Choosing between Small, Likely Rewards and Large, Unlikely Rewards Activates Inferior and Orbital Prefrontal Cortex , 1999, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[10]  J. Fuster.  The Prefrontal Cortex—An Update Time Is of the Essence , 2001, Neuron.

[11]  A. Damasio,et al.  Failure to respond autonomically to anticipated future outcomes following damage to prefrontal cortex. , 1996, Cerebral cortex.

[12]  L. Nadel,et al.  Memory consolidation, retrograde amnesia and the hippocampal complex , 1997, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[13]  C. Atance,et al.  Episodic future thinking , 2001, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[14]  Takashi Tsukiura,et al.  Brain mechanisms underlying human prospective memory , 2002 .

[15]  N C Andreasen,et al.  Remembering the past: two facets of episodic memory explored with positron emission tomography. , 1995, The American journal of psychiatry.

[16]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  A role for inhibition in shaping the temporal flow of information in prefrontal cortex , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[17]  A. Damasio,et al.  Somatic markers and the guidance of behavior: Theory and preliminary testing. , 1991 .

[18]  T. Shallice,et al.  The cognitive and neuroanatomical correlates of multitasking , 2000, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  T. Shallice,et al.  Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damage in man. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[20]  A R McIntosh,et al.  Functional brain maps of retrieval mode and recovery of episodic information , 1995, Neuroreport.

[21]  Hiroshi Fukuda,et al.  IV. 2. Time-Dependent Contribution of the Hippocampal Complex during Remembering the Past: A PET Study , 2002 .

[22]  L. Squire,et al.  Retrograde amnesia and memory consolidation: a neurobiological perspective , 1995, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[23]  Hiroshi Fukuda,et al.  Time-dependent contribution of the hippocampal complex when remembering the past: a PET study , 2002, Neuroreport.

[24]  H. Markowitsch.  Cognitive neuroscience of memory , 1998 .

[25]  Endel Tulving,et al.  On the uniqueness of episodic memory , 2000 .

[26]  R. Kawashima,et al.  The Role of the Basal Forebrain in Episodic Memory Retrieval: A Positron Emission Tomography Study , 2002, NeuroImage.

[27]  A. Benton,et al.  Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction , 1991 .

[28]  Hanna Damasio,et al.  Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[29]  W. Scoville,et al.  LOSS OF RECENT MEMORY AFTER BILATERAL HIPPOCAMPAL LESIONS , 1957, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[30]  M. Raichle,et al.  Brain blood flow measured with intravenous H2(15)O. I. Theory and error analysis. , 1983, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[31]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Functional Imaging of Neural Responses to Expectancy and Experience of Monetary Gains and Losses tasks with monetary payoffs , 2001 .

[32]  H Orihara,et al.  Performance evaluation of a large axial field-of-view PET scanner: SET-2400W , 1997, Annals of nuclear medicine.

[33]  H. Critchley,et al.  Neural Activity in the Human Brain Relating to Uncertainty and Arousal during Anticipation , 2001, Neuron.

[34]  A. Damasio,et al.  The return of Phineas Gage: clues about the brain from the skull of a famous patient. , 1994, Science.

[35]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Statistical parametric maps in functional imaging: A general linear approach , 1994 .

[36]  James K. Kroger,et al.  Cross-modal and cross-temporal association in neurons of frontal cortex , 2000, Nature.

[37]  Jordan Grafman,et al.  Handbook of Neuropsychology , 1991 .

[38]  Ellen Perecman,et al.  The frontal lobes revisited. , 1987 .

[39]  C. Frith,et al.  Brain regions involved in prospective memory as determined by positron emission tomography , 2001, Neuropsychologia.

[40]  L. Squire.  Memory and the hippocampus: a synthesis from findings with rats, monkeys, and humans. , 1992, Psychological review.

[41]  R. Kawashima,et al.  Participation of the prefrontal cortices in prospective memory: evidence from a PET study in humans , 1998, Neuroscience Letters.

[42]  Endel Tulving,et al.  Prefrontal cortex and episodic memory retrieval mode. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[43]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Cognitive Conjunction: A New Approach to Brain Activation Experiments , 1997, NeuroImage.

[44]  M. Mintun,et al.  Brain blood flow measured with intravenous H2(15)O. II. Implementation and validation. , 1983, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[45]  Memory consolidation , retrograde amnesia , and the temporal lobe , 2022 .

[46]  Tim Shallice,et al.  HIGHER-ORDER COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENTS AND FRONTAL-LOBE LESIONS IN MAN , 1991 .

[47]  H. Damasio,et al.  Characterization of the decision-making deficit of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[48]  E A Maguire,et al.  Neuroimaging studies of autobiographical event memory. , 2001, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.