The Impact of Self-processing on Mental Time Travel

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Brain Injuries, Focal

• Registration Number: NCT06823193
• Lead Sponsor: Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

Brief Summary

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward into the past or forward into the future to envision past and future events. This study examines the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT.

Detailed Description

Mental Time Travel (MTT) is the ability to project oneself toward another specific temporal location, in the past or future subjective time. Specifically, it requires placing mental events on a subjective timeline by remembering the past or imagining the future. Regarding neural correlates, the subjective experience of remembering the past is associated with the lateral parietal cortex, especially in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL). The involvement of parietal areas in MTT for past events has been confirmed by neuropsychological and neuromodulation studies. Patients with neglect, following a lesion of the right parietal cortex, show a deficit in judging events that occurred before a specific temporal reference, suggesting an impairment in the representation of past events. Using transcranial alternate continuos stimulation (tACS) D'Angelo and colleagues (2023) showed that parietal beta frequencies selectively alter participants' ability to project into the past, but not into the future. Regarding future processing, the involvement of prefrontal cortex has been widely reported. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) plays a key role in planning, while the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is involved in future scenario construction. In addition, vmPFC patients are unable to project into the future and anticipate events ahead, supporting a crucial role of the vmPFC in future construction.

Parietal and prefrontal areas are also involved in the processing of self-related information. In particular, the right lateral parietal cortex is more involved in retrieving self-related information than other-related information. Regarding the role of prefrontal regions in processing the self, the vmPFC shows greater activity when imagining a mental scenario related to the self rather than to another person.

To better understand MTT ability, two important questions arise from the review of the relevant literature. First, does self-related information affect our ability to mentally travel in time? If so, may these two processes interact in the same brain areas? VmPFC might be a good candidate for the interaction between future projection and self-processing: self-related stimuli could increase one's ability to "move" to future MTT.

Regarding past and self-related processing, the role of the right lateral parietal cortex is still unclear. IPL neural activity could underlie both processes, thus revealing a crucial centre for the interplay between MTT past projection and self-processing (autobiographical component of MTT).

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the influence of self-related stimuli in MTT tasks in patients with focal brain injury. Specifically, the authors will test for the first time whether the temporal distance between present time and the likelihood that a life event will occur (or has already occurred) is different whether the event is referred to one's own face or someone else's face.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2024-12-01
• Status Verified: 2025-01
• Study First Submitted: 2025-01-27
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-02-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-02-07
• Study First Posted: 2025-02-12
• Last Update Posted: 2025-02-12
• Primary Completion: 2025-06-30
• Study Completion: 2025-12-30

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 66

Inclusion Criteria

• the absence of general cognitive impairment, assessed by neuropsychological testing
• the presence of a focal brain lesion will be adopted as an inclusion criterion for patients.

Exclusion Criteria

• psychiatric disorders
• multiple brain lesions

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Likely Responses of events (Percentage)	At baseline	If the vmPFC plays a crucial role in MTT, by activating and orienting to general knowledge about common life events, then vmPFC patients' probability judgments (% Likely Responses) in the MTT task should not be modulated coherently as a function of the perceived age of the portrayed faces and the Past vs. Future Projection condition.; Considering the prominent role played by the vmPFC in future-oriented cognition, we expect that deficits in MTT would be more marked in the Future compared to the Past Projection condition.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Temporal estimation of cultural prototypical life event (years)	At baseline	The deficit found in MTT may be related to an impairment in activating general knowledge about common events. If this is the case, it should also result in an impairment in temporally placing cultural events appropriately on a time-line representing the duration of life (in years, from birth to death). Moreover, these difficulties in the temporal ordering of life events would be more marked for relatively future compared to relatively past events.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri; 🇮🇹 Castel Goffredo, Mantova, Italy