Recent fMRI evidence also shows that both default network and executive regions are coactive and coupled during memory retrieval (Fornito et al., 2012; St Jacques et al., 2011) and mind-wandering (Christoff, et al., 2009; Christoff, 2012). Further, people typically focus on the future and engage in extensive autobiographical planning during mind-wandering episodes (Baird et al., 2011; Stawarczyk, et al., 2011), and these

effects are most pronounced in individuals with high working memory capacity, a measure of executive processing (Baird et al., 2011). These observations provide further evidence that the default network can couple with executive regions in the service of goal-directed cognition (for further discussion, see Schacter, 2012; Smallwood et al., 2012; Spreng, 2012). It should be clear from the material reviewed here that Neratinib much has been learned about the relations among memory, imagination, and future thinking during the past several years. We conclude by noting a number of other emerging issues that we think are particularly suitable for additional study. The tight linkage between remembering the past and imagining the future has led several investigators to propose that a key function of memory is to provide a basis for predicting the future via imagined scenarios and that the ability selleck chemicals llc to flexibly recombine elements

of past experience into simulations of novel future events is therefore an adaptive process (e.g., Boyer, 2008; Schacter and Addis, 2007a, 2007b; Suddendorf and Corballis, 1997, 2007). Although future simulations are subject to some pitfalls (Gilbert and Wilson, 2007; Schacter, Florfenicol 2012), several lines of research have begun to provide evidence for the functional-adaptive role of future simulations, including work on default network contributions to planning and problem solving discussed

earlier (for review, see Schacter, 2012). An interesting parallel has also appeared in the field of machine learning, where significant advances have been made in planning through the deployment of Monte Carlo tree search methods (e.g., Silver and Veness, 2010). These techniques make use of simulations of the future (“rollouts”) to better evaluate situations and aid decision making, and have been successfully used in a gaming context to train master level Computer Go programs (i.e., programs that play the board game Go). Another promising direction involves the simulation of emotional events and its relation to memory. It has been established that the ability to generate specific and detailed simulations of future events is associated with effective coping by enhancing the ability of individuals to engage in emotional regulation and appropriate problem-solving activities (Brown et al., 2002; Sheldon et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 1998).