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The hippocampus dissociates present from past and future goals

Author

Listed:
  • Alison Montagrin

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
    University of Geneva
    University of Geneva)

  • Denise E. Croote

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

  • Maria Giulia Preti

    (CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging
    École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
    University of Geneva (UNIGE))

  • Liron Lerman

    (Sector 5 Digital)

  • Mark G. Baxter

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

  • Daniela Schiller

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
    Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Abstract

Our brain adeptly navigates goals across time frames, distinguishing between urgent needs and those of the past or future. The hippocampus is a region known for supporting mental time travel and organizing information along its longitudinal axis, transitioning from detailed posterior representations to generalized anterior ones. This study investigates the role of the hippocampus in distinguishing goals over time: whether the hippocampus encodes time regardless of detail or abstraction, and whether the hippocampus preferentially activates its anterior region for temporally distant goals (past and future) and its posterior region for immediate goals. We use a space-themed experiment with 7T functional MRI on 31 participants to examine how the hippocampus encodes the temporal distance of goals. During a simulated Mars mission, we find that the hippocampus tracks goals solely by temporal proximity. We show that past and future goals activate the left anterior hippocampus, while current goals engage the left posterior hippocampus. This suggests that the hippocampus maps goals using timestamps, extending its long axis system to include temporal goal organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison Montagrin & Denise E. Croote & Maria Giulia Preti & Liron Lerman & Mark G. Baxter & Daniela Schiller, 2024. "The hippocampus dissociates present from past and future goals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-48648-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48648-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
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    Cited by:

    1. Hannah Tarder-Stoll & Christopher Baldassano & Mariam Aly, 2024. "The brain hierarchically represents the past and future during multistep anticipation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, December.

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