Consciousness and neural time travel
Advances in Consciousness Research October 28, 2010 Michael E. Hasselmo
Consciousness is described as a perception of self constructed to guide voluntary, goal-directed behavior, involving neural mechanisms for mental time travel into the future during planning and into the past during episodic retrieval. This neural time travel relies on distributed cortical perceptual processes that detect the state of the self across multiple dimensions, including spatial location, head direction, speed, temporal duration, and egocentric relationships to items. These circuit mechanisms are regulated by neuromodulatory influences, such as muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, which activate intrinsic properties of neurons involved in maintaining an internal representation of self.