There is evidence that the hippocampus has a role in imagining the future. Preferential right hippocampal engagement is observed for imagined future events (relative to remembered past events), and patients with hippocampal damage are impaired when imagining detailed future events. However, some patients with hippocampal damage are not impaired, suggesting that there are conditions in which the hippocampus may not be necessary. Given the known role of the hippocampus in memory encoding, hippocampal activity associated with imagining may reflect the encoding of simulations rather than event construction per se. Martin and coworkers used functional MRI to investigate this possibility. Participants imagined future events in response to person, place, and object cues. They concluded that right hippocampal activity observed during imagining the future may reflect the encoding of the simulations into memory. This function is not essential for constructing coherent scenarios and may explain why some patients with hippocampal damage are still able to imagine the future.
Martin VC et al., A role for the hippocampus in encoding simulations of future events.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108 (33): 13858-13863 (2011).
