Time Regained: How the Human Brain Constructs Memory for Time

Lifes episodes unfold against a context that changes with time. Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed significant findings about how specific areas of the human brain may support the representation of temporal information in memory. A consistent theme in these studies is that the hippocampus appears to play a central role in representing temporal context, as operationalized in neuroimaging studies of arbitrary lists of items, sequences of items, or meaningful, lifelike events. Additionally, activity in a posterior medial cortical network may reflect the representation of generalized temporal information for meaningful events. The hippocampus, posterior medial network, and other regions--particularly in prefrontal cortex--appear to play complementary roles in memory for temporal context.\n\nHighlightsO_LIThe hippocampus encodes information about temporal contiguity, order, and event structure.\nC_LIO_LIPosterior medial cortical areas represent order across meaningfully coherent events.\nC_LIO_LIPrefrontal and subcortical contributions to temporal memory deserve further study.\nC_LI