The past and the future in the human brain are connected by the same structures
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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The ability to present and plan the future is associated with specific areas of the brain that hold common knowledge, says Dr. Muyreanne Irish from the Australian Research Institute of Neurology. According to her, patients with dementia who can not remember, for example, popular songs or the names of famous people, also can not imagine themselves in the future.
"We already know that memories of the past are erased in Alzheimer's, but the same thing happens with thinking about the future." The study showed that the damage to brain areas that keep knowledge of the facts and meanings of things produces the corresponding effect, "says Irish.
Meanwhile, reflections on the future allow predicting the consequences of actions. With the help of the fMRI, Dr. Irish decided to visually look at the work of the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease who lost their memories of the past, and patients with semantic dementia who lost the ability to memorize the facts (semantic memory), but they remembered the past generally well.
It turned out that the second group of patients had the same indicators as the first, if you had to think about the future, according to a report published in the journal Brain. Hence, the same structures are involved in regulation.