Neuroscientists for the first time have identified regions of the brain involved in envisioning future events. Using brain imaging, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that the human mind taps into the same parts of the brain while imagining the future as it does when recollecting the past. This means that the brain apparently predicts the course of future events by imagining them taking place much like similar past ones.

Imagine former President Bill Clinton celebrating his birthday in the Oval Office. Then envision your next birthday party and recall your previous one. Do this lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and you will have an idea of what researchers instructed 12 female and nine male subjects, all right-handed, to do so they could attempt to determine the regions of the brain exclusively used when humans envision specific future events.

Neuroscientists Karl Szpunar, Jason Watson and Kathleen McDermott measured the brain activity of subjects as they performed these and similar tasks. Because people in scanners tend to consider various aspects of their own lives, the researchers explicitly asked subjects to also mull memories of past events. But simply comparing predictions with memories could end up canceling out brain regions employed in both conditions, so researchers added a third: imagining Bill Clinton in the same or similar scenarios. For example, a subject might be asked to recall a previously attended barbecue, imagine a future one as well as picture Clinton at such a cookout.

By canceling out regions that were similarly employed in all three testing scenarios--such as the parts of the brain associated with breathing, seeing, and so on--the neuroscientists uncovered those parts of the brain selectively employed when performing these jobs. Eight different regions displayed extra activity--in other words benefited from increased blood flow--when dealing with imagining the future, including Brodmann's area, the medial posterior parietal cortex and the posterior cerebellum, among others. An additional 15 regions played a role in either remembering the past or imagining the future, including those previously identified as important for remembering locations visited in the past.

This seems to suggest that "to effectively generate a plausible image of the future, subjects reactivate images (e.g., visual-spatial context)," the researchers write in a paper published online January 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. "Postexperiment questionnaires indicate that while envisioning the future, subjects tended to place those images in the context of familiar places (e.g., home, school) and familiar people (e.g., friends)." In other words, to imagine the future, we remember the past and put our projection in that context.

Because none of the subjects had actual experience with Bill Clinton, imagining him did not benefit from such memories, though many could picture the environs in which he would find himself. As one subject put it: "I see Bill Clinton at a party in the White House, alongside several faceless senators." These faceless senators, and the subjects who imagined them, however, have given at least a preliminary indication of where future research into the brain regions associated with picturing what will come might delve.

2 Comments

1. 1. george52362 05:17 PM 7/23/08

   Please view my blog-roll on the "parallaxphone" my prediction! George

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. george52362 05:55 PM 7/23/08

   My "parallaxphone" prediction" I am just a visionary kind of person! When we use to have a blog-roll on this site! I wrote a short blog on The "parallaxphone" In a brief summary on this! This wonderful hand held device about the size of a "cellphone" will have "timetravel" capabilitys! Yes for you the consummer! I for see a young Swiss/Italian woman emerging from the "scientific community" in the year 2014 just a little time has past on the "scare" that the world is comming to an end on December 21,2012! lol! Just to the contrary! This young woman will be carring a hefty amount of background in the field of experimentation with microwaves,parallel universes, astro physics, just to name a few! She along with the already merging of 2 giants Microsoft/Apple in the year 2013! To activate this device open it like you would a cellphone on a "holographic display" will automatically emerge about 3 inches tall! You will see a "diagram of a humanbody" it will be rotating in slow counter clockwise rotations! Will you log in your destination/date/time! "Yes" the "past for example"! The year 1973 at the premier opening of The Exorcist at The Chinese Grumans Theatre! All you half to do is log in 1973/approxdate/time/place! and this magnificant device will do all the rest! All you will need now is some "hot buttered popcorn" and sit back and enjoy your feature! That is .....of course in the year 1973! Yes......there will be "restictions" however on this device "rules and regulations" You will be required to under go a battery of test and licence before you can pass go!lol! As far as enter acting with Loved ones or anyone else you desire this you cannot do! "In the beginning you will be in a "protective vortex envelope" Because you could accendently rip the delicate fabric of time itself! But you can enter act with people...they just want know you are from the future! Gee I would just be happy transporting myself to the toilet and back to my bed safe and sound! There will be other experiments being performed in Santa Monica California with old "X-Ray machines /CATSCAN machines used in "time travel experimentation! The same machine they used on the set of the motion picture The Exorcist! YES!!! I did say this! You have to remember this is a "prediction" and predictions are also a "expression of time also"! So folks we are dealing with the delicate fabric of time right now as you are reading my prediction! One of you will be responsible "scientist" that will make this happen! The domino effect if you will!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this