Neuropsychiatry Laboratory, Department of Medical Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Jerusalem 9190501, Israel.
Department of Neurology, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical School , Jerusalem, Israel.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2024 Nov 4;379(1913):rstb20230414. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0414. Epub 2024 Sep 16.
Mental time travel (MTT), a cornerstone of human cognition, enables individuals to mentally project themselves into their past or future. It was shown that this self-projection may extend beyond the temporal domain to the spatial and social domains. What about higher cognitive domains? Twenty-eight participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while self-projecting to different political, moral and temporal perspectives. For each domain, participants were asked to judge their relationship to various people (politicians, moral figures, personal acquaintances) from their actual or projected self-location. Findings showed slower, less accurate responses during self-projection across all domains. fMRI analysis revealed self-projection elicited brain activity at the precuneus, medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction and anterior insula, bilaterally and right lateral temporal cortex. Notably, 23.5% of active voxels responded to all three domains and 27% to two domains, suggesting a shared brain system for self-projection. For ordinality judgement (self-reference), 52.5% of active voxels corresponded to the temporal domain specifically. Self-projection activity overlapped mostly with the frontoparietal control network, followed by the default mode network, while self-reference showed a reversed pattern, demonstrating MTT's implication in spontaneous brain activity. MTT may thus be regarded as a 'mental-experiential travel', with self-projection as a domain-general construct and self-reference related mostly to time. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'.
心理时间旅行（MTT）是人类认知的基石，使个体能够在心理上将自己投射到过去或未来。已经表明，这种自我投射可能会扩展到时间领域之外，延伸到空间和社会领域。那么更高的认知领域呢？28 名参与者在进行功能磁共振成像（fMRI）时，将自己投射到不同的政治、道德和时间视角。对于每个领域，参与者被要求根据自己的实际或投射的自我位置来判断自己与各种人的关系（政治家、道德人物、个人熟人）。研究结果表明，在所有领域进行自我投射时，反应速度较慢，准确性较低。fMRI 分析显示，自我投射在楔前叶、内侧和背外侧前额叶皮层、颞顶联合区和前岛叶引起大脑活动，双侧和右侧颞叶外侧也有此现象。值得注意的是，所有三个领域都有 23.5%的活跃体素有反应，两个领域有 27%的活跃体素有反应，这表明自我投射有一个共享的大脑系统。对于有序性判断（自我参照），52.5%的活跃体素与时间域有对应关系。自我投射活动与额顶控制网络重叠最多，其次是默认模式网络，而自我参照则表现出相反的模式，表明 MTT 对自发脑活动有影响。因此，MTT 可以被视为一种“精神体验旅行”，自我投射是一种普遍的结构，而自我参照主要与时间有关。本文是主题为“情节记忆的要素：40 年研究的启示”的一部分。
