Planning ahead requires several component processes. Imagine you are playing a game of connect four. You have to keep track of multiple steps in the future, notice all the possiblities, and evaluate how good each option is. We studied patients with damage to the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain area usually associated with evaluation (Holton et al, J. Neuroscience 2025). We found that they actually had preserved evaluation, but they looked fewer steps into the future, and also failed to notice all the possibilities. We think this brain area is important for imagining possible situations.
