The future we imagine is a novel reassembling of our past experiences. Given that, it shouldn’t be surprising that the same neural network is engaged when we imagine the future as when we remember the past. Thinking about the future is remembering the future, putting memories together in a creative way to imagine a possible way things might turn out. Those brain pathways include the hippocampus (a key structure for memory) and the prefrontal cortex, which controls System 2, deliberative decision-making. It is our cognitive control center.
