Using brain scans, a team from Washington University detected brain areas activated when we think about upcoming events and how we create a preview of our own future.

These findings help doctors understand in which way strokes, injuries or diseases affect the brain of the patients who have lost the anticipative thinking.

The researchers placed the subjects in the MRI scanner and asked them to think or move in a particular way. The scanner uncovered specific areas of the brain, areas that increased the activity.

The technique is so precise that the researchers could almost know what the patients were thinking about by simply looking at the activated brain areas.

The team also investigated a unique human ability: that of creating mental pictures of events that have not yet happened (predicting an event). 21 volunteers were placed into the MRI scanner and asked to vividly imagine future events and remember past events. The scanner revealed clear differences between a birthday from the past and a birthday yet to come.

Three particular areas of the brain appeared very active when foreseeing events: the left lateral premotor cortex, the left precuneus and the right posterior cerebellum. These areas are already known for their role in imagining the body movements, thus when the human brain is projecting the future, it combines terms of distinct movements and actions that will happen then.

These discoveries match with the loss of anticipating events in patients with brain damage in roughly the same areas. "Perhaps one of the most adaptive capacities of the human mind is the ability to fashion behavior in anticipation of future consequences."

"Much of our everyday thought depends on our ability to see ourselves partaking in future events."

Further research is necessary to describe the precise way that brain functions when thinking about the upcoming events.