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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.

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

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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.

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Correspondence to Daniel L. Schacter.

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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

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