Do you believe in time travel? Every time we remember something from the past or imagine something that will happen in the future, we engage in mental time travel. Scientists discovered that, whether we mentally travel back into the past or forward into the future, some of the same brain regions are activated. One of those regions is the hippocampus, a brain structure famous for its role in building long-term memories. Damage to the hippocampus causes memory problems, but it also impairs the ability to imagine future experiences. This brain connection between remembering the past and thinking about the future suggests that memory, planning, and decision-making may be deeply related. The ability to form memories allows us to reminisce about the past. But maybe the ability to form memories also evolved to allow us to think about and plan for the future.

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00152