The ghosts of past and future

Remembering the past to imagine the future: the prospective brain

Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Buckner, R. L. (2007) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn2213 · Cited by 2,394

Hippocampal sharp wave-ripple: A cognitive biomarker for episodic memory and planning

Buzsáki, G. (2015) · Hippocampus · doi:10.1002/hipo.22488 · Cited by 1,759

The cognitive neuroscience of constructive memory: remembering the past and imagining the future

Schacter, D. L., & Addis, D. R. (2007) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2087 · Cited by 1,836

The future of memory: remembering, imagining, and the brain

Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., Hassabis, D., Martin, V. C., Spreng, R. N., & Szpunar, K. K. (2012) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.11.001 · Cited by 1,398

Deconstructing episodic memory with construction

Hassabis, D., & Maguire, E. A. (2007) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.05.001 · Cited by 1,229

Mental imagery in emotion and emotional disorders

Holmes, E. A., & Mathews, A. (2010) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.01.001 · Cited by 976

Episodic Simulation of Future Events: Concepts, Data, and Applications

Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Buckner, R. L. (2008) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1196/annals.1440.001 · Cited by 840

Navigating Into the Future or Driven by the Past

Seligman, M. E. P., Railton, P., Baumeister, R. F., & Sripada, C. (2013) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691612474317 · Cited by 720

Age-Related Changes in the Episodic Simulation of Future Events

Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2008) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02043.x · Cited by 660

Emotion and autobiographical memory

Holland, A. C., & Kensinger, E. A. (2010) · Physics of Life Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.006 · Cited by 540

Cooperation between the default mode network and the frontal–parietal network in the production of an internal train of thought

Smallwood, J., Brown, K., Baird, B., & Schooler, J. W. (2012) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2011.03.072 · Cited by 379

Episodic simulation of future events is impaired in mild Alzheimer's disease

Addis, D. R., Sacchetti, D. C., Ally, B. A., Budson, A. E., & Schacter, D. L. (2009) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.05.018 · Cited by 287

Shaped by the past: the default mode network supports cognition that is independent of immediate perceptual input

Konishi, M., McLaren, D. G., Engen, H., & Smallwood, J. (2015) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0132209 · Cited by 194

Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network

Tamir, D. I., Bricker, A. B., Dodell-Feder, D., & Mitchell, J. P. (2016) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsv114 · Cited by 212

Self-reflection and the temporal focus of the wandering mind

Smallwood, J., Schooler, J. W., Turk, D. J., Cunningham, S. J., Burns, P., & Macrae, C. N. (2011) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.12.017 · Cited by 202

Hippocampal contributions to the episodic simulation of specific and general future events

Addis, D. R., Cheng, T., P. Roberts, R., & Schacter, D. L. (2011) · Hippocampus · doi:10.1002/hipo.20870 · Cited by 182

Behavioural evidence for mental time travel in nonhuman animals

Suddendorf, T., & Corballis, M. C. (2010) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2009.11.044 · Cited by 168

On the constructive episodic simulation of past and future events

Schacter, D. L., & Addis, D. R. (2007) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x07002178 · Cited by 139

What happens to personal identity when semantic knowledge degrades? A study of the self and autobiographical memory in semantic dementia

Duval, C., Desgranges, B., de La Sayette, V., Belliard, S., Eustache, F., & Piolino, P. (2012) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.11.019 · Cited by 138

Reduced default mode network suppression during a working memory task in remitted major depression

Bartova, L., Meyer, B. M., Diers, K., Rabl, U., Scharinger, C., Popovic, A., Pail, G., Kalcher, K., Boubela, R. N., Huemer, J., et al. (2015) · Journal of Psychiatric Research · doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.02.025 · Cited by 135

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

Johnson, S. G. B., Bilovich, A., & Tuckett, D. (2023) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x22001157 · Cited by 131

Imagining mobility: the prospective cognition question in migration research

Koikkalainen, S., & Kyle, D. (2016) · Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies · doi:10.1080/1369183x.2015.1111133 · Cited by 127

Bilateral hippocampal lesion and a selective impairment of the ability for mental time travel

Andelman, F., Hoofien, D., Goldberg, I., Aizenstein, O., & Neufeld, M. Y. (2010) · Neurocase · doi:10.1080/13554791003623318 · Cited by 120

Self in time: imagined self-location influences neural activity related to mental time travel

Arzy, S., Molnar-Szakacs, I., & Blanke, O. (2008) · Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5712-07.2008 · Cited by 110

Flexible retrieval: When true inferences produce false memories.

Carpenter, A. C., & Schacter, D. L. (2017) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition · doi:10.1037/xlm0000340 · Cited by 108

An overview of the neuro-cognitive processes involved in the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of true and false memories

Straube, B. (2012) · Behavioral and Brain Functions · doi:10.1186/1744-9081-8-35 · Cited by 96

Such stuff as dreams are made on? Elaborative encoding, the ancient art of memory, and the hippocampus

Llewellyn, S. (2013) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x12003135 · Cited by 95

Neurophysiology of Remembering

Buzsáki, G., McKenzie, S., & Davachi, L. (2022) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-021721-110002 · Cited by 84

Memory and Imagination: Perspectives on Constructive Episodic Simulation

Schacter, D. L., & Addis, D. R. (2020) · The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination · doi:10.1017/9781108580298.008 · Cited by 91

Memory as mental time travel

Perrin, D., & Michaelian, K. (2017) · The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory · doi:10.4324/9781315687315-19 · Cited by 84

Does metarepresentation make human mental time travel unique?

Redshaw, J. (2014) · WIREs Cognitive Science · doi:10.1002/wcs.1308 · Cited by 68

Mental simulation of routes during navigation involves adaptive temporal compression

Arnold, A. E. G. F., Iaria, G., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2016) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.08.009 · Cited by 58

Effects of prospective thinking on intertemporal choice: the role of familiarity

Sasse, L. K., Peters, J., Büchel, C., & Brassen, S. (2015) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.22912 · Cited by 54

Escaping the Past: Contributions of the Hippocampus to Future Thinking and Imagination

Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Szpunar, K. K. (2017) · The Hippocampus from Cells to Systems · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-50406-3_14 · Cited by 54

Schizophrenia Spectrum disorders show reduced specificity and less positive events in mental time travel

Chen, X.-J., Liu, L.-L., Cui, J.-F., Wang, Y., Chen, A.-T., Li, F.-H., Wang, W.-H., Zheng, H.-F., Gan, M.-Y., Li, C.-Q., et al. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01121 · Cited by 34

Memory in the Age of AI Agents

Hu, Y., Liu, S., Yue, Y., Zhang, G., Liu, B., Zhu, F., Lin, J., Guo, H., Dou, S., Xi, Z., et al. (2025) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.13564 · Cited by 389