Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2007 - Volume 30, Issue 03  

Open Peer Commentary

Prospection or projection: Neurobiological basis of stimulus-independent mental traveling

Jiro Okudaa1a2

a1 Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute, Machida, Tokyo 194–8610, Japan j.okuda@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/executive_functions/People/Jiro.html

a2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology Department, University College London, London WC1 N 3AR, United Kingdom.

Abstract

The number of studies concerning the neurobiology of human prospection is now rapidly exploding. Recent works suggest that prospection can be better understood in a broader context of self-projection into other times, places, or agents that can share the same cerebral basis involving medial aspects of prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortices. Mental time travel may be extended more generally to “mental traveling,” accomplished by stimulus-independent mental processes typical of human thought.

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