Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40274997›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

The role of vmPFC in accessing the temporality of life events for mental time travel.

Angelo Pisani, Giulia Franco, Ivan Patanè, Silvia Gambino, Giuliana Vezzadini, Mariano D'Angelo, Michela Candini, Elisa Ciaramelli

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In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Angelo PisaniDepartment of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari", University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, Bologna, Italy.
Giulia FrancoDepartment of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari", University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, Bologna, Italy.
Ivan PatanèDepartment of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, Trento, Italy.
Silvia GambinoCenter for Studies and Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Giuliana VezzadiniNeurorehabilitation of the Institute of Castel Goffredo, Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS, Mantova, Italy.
Mariano D'AngeloDepartment of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Michela CandiniDepartment of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari", University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, Bologna, Italy. michela.candini2@unibo.it.
Elisa CiaramelliDepartment of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari", University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, Bologna, Italy.

Funding

PRIN 20224FWF2J
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward in time, toward past events, and forward in time, toward future events. This study investigates the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT. Patients with lesion to the vmPFC (vmPFC patients), control patients, and healthy participants completed a MTT task requiring to orient in time towards the past and the future to estimate the likelihood of typical life events, and a timeline task requiring to place events coherently on a line representing the lifespan. The results showed that vmPFC-but not control-patients systematically anticipated the timing of events, associating them with earlier than typical ages during both past and future MTT, as well as in the timeline task, possibly due to a shortened time perspective or to the systematic devaluation of events. These findings highlight the critical role of vmPFC in activating temporal schemata and supporting temporal orientation during MTT, enabling the construction of coherent life narratives.

Indexed as

Prefrontal CortexTime PerceptionAdultFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedLifetime periodsMental time travelSemantic memoryTemporal projectionVentromedial prefrontal cortex

Identifiers

PMID40274997
PMCPMC12022279

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.