Remembering and imagining appear to be very different functions, one recovering true information from the past, the other considering the unreal or exploring the future. And yet many patients with damage to the hippocampus (a structure in the temporal lobes) – and resultant memory impairment – struggle in imagining the future. Moreover, neuroimaging data show the hippocampus is involved in both tasks. Taken together, this evidence suggests that memory for the past and imagination for the future may depend on shared neural processes.
A new imaging study by Brock Kirwan and his colleagues confirms at a broad anatomical level that both memory and future imagination call on similar regions of the hippocampus. But the research also shows how these two mental functions do depend on distinct neural processes after all.
Fourteen study participants were invited into a scanner where they were presented with photographs in a series of runs. One run contained…
... SIMPLY CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THIS PIECE IN FULL & FREE @ THE BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY RESEARCH BLOG…
the interpretOr 