Neural substrates of implicit cueing effect on prospective memory

► Cues matched to the target category presented implicitly during the ongoing task enhanced prospective memory performance, and cues matched to the action accelerated responses more than irrelevant implicit cues in the prospective memory task.► Caudal anterior cingulate cortex (cACC) showed increased activity during the ongoing task with both implicit target and action cues.► The facilitation of prospective target detection and the action execution by target cues were associated with increased supplementary motor area (SMA) activity.► Premotor cortex (PMC) showed enhanced activation with action cue during the prospective memory task.