See the future in the past
The month of January is named for the Roman god Janus, god of doorways and gates, who looked both backward to the past and forward to the future, as people still tend to do around the first of the year. This press release describes some recent research that used fMRI to see which areas of the brain are active when we envision the future. It turns out that there’s a remarkable overlap between these areas and those that are active when we remember the past, suggesting that the two activities rely on many of the same mechanisms in the brain. In fact, this may also suggest a possible adaptive role for the capacity for memory. When we try to prepare for future situations, we draw heavily on our memories of how similar situations in the past worked out, and having a solid store of memories could thus provide a survival advantage.
