In daily life, we use visual working memory (WM) to guide our actions. While attending to currently-relevant information, we must simultaneously maintain future-relevant information, and discard information that is no longer relevant. However, the neural mechanisms by which unattended, but future-relevant, information is maintained in working memory, and future-irrelevant information is discarded, are not well understood. Here, we investigated representations of these different information types, using functional magnetic resonance imaging in combination with multivoxel pattern analysis and computational modeling based on inverted encoding model simulations. We found that currently-relevant WM information in the focus of attention was maintained through representations in visual, parietal and posterior frontal brain regions, whereas deliberate forgetting led to suppression of the discarded representations in early visual cortex. In contrast, future-relevant information was neither inhibited nor actively maintained in these areas. These findings suggest that different neural mechanisms underlie the WM representation of currently- and future-relevant information, as compared to information that is discarded from WM.

This meta-analysis aims to evaluate whether the extant literature justifies any definitive conclusions about whether and how SITBs may be associated with brain differences. A total of 77 papers (N = 4,903) published through January 1, 2019 that compared individuals with and without SITBs were included, resulting in 882 coordinates. A pooled meta-analysis assessing for general risk for SITBs indicated a lack of convergence on structural differences. When all types of control groups were considered, functional differences in the left posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), right amygdala, left hippocampus, and right thalamus were significant using multi-level kernel density analysis (pcorrected < 0.05) but nonsignificant using activation-likelihood estimation. These results suggest that a propensity for internally-oriented, emotional processing coupled with under-active pain processing could potentially underlie SITBs, but additional research is needed to test this possibility. Separate analyses for types of SITBs suggested that the brain differences associated with deliberate self-harm were consistent with the overall findings. Checkered moderator effects were detected. Overall, the meta-analytic evidence was not robust. More studies are needed to reach definitive conclusions about whether SITBs are associated with brain differences.