Traumatic Brain Injury: Many Amnesia Patients Can't Imagine Future

Damage to the brain's memory and learning center, the hippocampus, has long been known to play a critical role in remembering the past. The hippocampus can become damaged when oxygen is cut off to the brain, as a result of diseases like Alzheimer's or through sudden head trauma. In a new study of people with damaged hippocampi, the patients struggled in imagining the future.

Some Amnesia Patients Can't Imagine Future, Either

"We found that the role played by the hippocampus in processing memory was far broader than merely reliving past experiences," said Eleanor Maguire from the University College in London. "It also seems to support the ability to imagine any kind of experience, including possible future events. In that sense, people with damage to the hippocampus are forced to live in the present." The hippocampus might possibly provide the spatial context or environmental setting in which the details of experiences are bound.