[en] Abstract Episodic future thinking allows humans to mentally simulate virtually infinite future possibilities, yet this device is fundamentally goal-directed and should not be equated with fantasizing or wishful thinking. The purpose of this functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to investigate the neural basis of such goal-directed processing during future-event simulation. Participants were scanned while they imagined future events that were related to their personal goals (personal future events) and future events that were plausible but unrelated to their personal goals (nonpersonal future events). Results showed that imaging personal future events elicited stronger activation in ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) compared to imaging nonpersonal future events. Moreover, these brain activations overlapped with activations elicited by a second task that assessed semantic self-knowledge (i.e., making judgments on one's own personality traits), suggesting that ventral MPFC and PCC mediate self-referential processing across different functional domains. It is suggested that these brain regions may support a collection of processes that evaluate, code, and contextualize the relevance of mental representations with regard to personal goals. The implications of these findings for the understanding of the function instantiated by the default network of the brain are also discussed.
Research Center/Unit :
GIGA CRC (Cyclotron Research Center) In vivo Imaging-Aging & Memory - ULiège
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
D'Argembeau, Arnaud ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Stawarczyk, David ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Majerus, Steve ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Collette, Fabienne ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Neuropsychologie
Van der Linden, Martial ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Feyers, Dorothée ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Maquet, Pierre ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Salmon, Eric ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cliniques > Neuroimagerie des troubles de la mémoire et révalid. cogn.
Language :
English
Title :
The neural basis of personal goal processing when envisioning future events
F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique [BE]
Funding text :
This research was supported by a grant from the French-speaking
community of Belgium (ARC, Convention 06/11-340), the Belgian
Inter-University Attraction Pole P6/29, and the F.R.S.-FNRS.
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