The role of vmPFC in accessing the temporality of life events for mental time travel

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward in time, toward past events, and forward in time, toward future events. This study investigates the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT. Patients with lesion to the vmPFC (vmPFC patients), control patients, and healthy participants completed a MTT task requiring to orient in time towards the past and the future to estimate the likelihood of typical life events, and a timeline task requiring to place events coherently on a line representing the lifespan. The results showed that vmPFC—but not control—patients systematically anticipated the timing of events, associating them with earlier than typical ages during both past and future MTT, as well as in the timeline task, possibly due to a shortened time perspective or to the systematic devaluation of events. These findings highlight the critical role of vmPFC in activating temporal schemata and supporting temporal orientation during MTT, enabling the construction of coherent life narratives.