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Self-related information is remembered better than other-related information (self-reference effect; SRE), a phenomenon that has been convincingly linked to the medial prefrontal cortex. It is not clear whether information related to our future self would also have a privileged status in memory, as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regions respond less to the future than to the present self, as if it were an 'other'. Here we ask whether the integrity of the ventral mPFC (vmPFC) is necessary for the emergence of the present and future SRE, if any. vmPFC patients and brain-damaged and healthy controls judged whether each of a series of trait adjectives was descriptive of their present self, future self, another person and that person in the future and later recognized studied traits among distractors. Information relevant to the present (vs future) was generally recognized better, across groups. However, whereas healthy and brain-damaged controls exhibited strong present and future SREs, these were absent in vmPFC patients, who concomitantly showed reduced certainty about their own present and anticipated traits compared to the control groups. These findings indicate that vmPFC is necessary to impart a special mnemonic status to self-related information, including our envisioned future self, possibly by instantiating the self-schema., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press.)

The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in mental time travel toward the past and the future is debated. Here, patients with focal lesions to the vmPFC and brain-damaged and healthy controls mentally projected themselves to a past, present or future moment of subjective time (self-projection) and classified a series of events as past or future relative to the adopted temporal self-location (self-reference). We found that vmPFC patients were selectively impaired in projecting themselves to the future and in recognizing relative-future events. These findings indicate that vmPFC damage hinders the mental processing of and movement toward future events, pointing to a prominent, multifaceted role of vmPFC in future-oriented mental time travel., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Mind-wandering, an ubiquitous expression of humans' mental life, reflects a drift of attention away from the current task towards self-generated thoughts, and has been associated with activity in the brain default network. To date, however, little is understood about the contribution of individual nodes of this network to mind-wandering. Here, we investigated whether the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is critically involved in mind-wandering, by studying the propensity to mind-wander in patients with lesion to the vmPFC (vmPFC patients), control patients with lesions not involving the vmPFC, and healthy individuals. Participants performed three tasks varying in cognitive demands while their thoughts were periodically sampled, and a self-report scale of daydreaming in daily life. vmPFC patients exhibited reduced mind-wandering rates across tasks, and claimed less frequent daydreaming, than both healthy and brain-damaged controls. vmPFC damage reduced off-task thoughts related to the future, while it promoted those about the present. These results indicate that vmPFC critically supports mind-wandering, possibly by helping to construct future-related scenarios and thoughts that have the potential to draw attention inward, away from the ongoing tasks., (© The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Disgust for contaminating objects (core disgust), immoral behaviors (moral disgust) and unsavory others (interpersonal disgust), have been assumed to be closely related. It is not clear, however, whether different forms of disgust are mediated by overlapping or specific neural substrates. We report that 10 patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) avoided behaviors that normally elicit interpersonal disgust (e.g. using the scarf of a busker) less frequently than healthy and brain-damaged controls, whereas they avoided core and moral disgust elicitors at normal rates. These results indicate that different forms of disgust are dissociated neurally. We propose that the vmPFC is causally (and selectively) involved in mediating interpersonal disgust, shaping patterns of social avoidance and approach.

Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontal activation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas compared to impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical region plays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functional imaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain area is necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requires evidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patients with focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individuals in personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moral dilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willing to judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors in personal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast, their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparable to that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior.