How Self-Processing Influences Mental Time Travel in People With and Without Focal Brain Injuries

What this Trial Is About

This research aims to investigate how self-related information affects mental time travel MTT, which is the ability to mentally project oneself backward into the past or forward into the future. The study focuses on the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex vmPFC in orienting toward past and future events during MTT, especially in patients with focal brain injuries. It explores whether self-processing interacts with time projection in the same brain areas, particularly in vmPFC and the right lateral parietal cortex. Participants will complete three behavioral tasks the Mental Time Travel task, the Age Estimation control task, and the Lifeline task. In the MTT task, faces of different ages with life event descriptions are shown, and participants judge the likelihood of these events occurring in the past or future relative to the person. The Age Estimation task asks participants to estimate the ages of the faces, while the Lifeline task involves associating life events with typical ages. During the study, researchers will assess participants responses to these tasks, including the percentage of likely responses to events and temporal estimation of life events. Participants include healthy volunteers and patients with focal brain injuries affecting vmPFC or other areas. The study includes neuropsychological testing to rule out cognitive impairment and tracks responses at baseline to understand the influence of self-processing on MTT. The study runs until September 2026 and includes adults aged 40 to 80 years.

The Impact of Self-processing on Mental Time Travel