Mind blanking is a distinct mental state linked to a recurrent brain profile of globally positive connectivity during ongoing mentation

Abstract

Mind-blanking (MB) is the inability to report mental contents, challenging the view of a constantly thought-oriented mind during wakefulness. Using fMRI experience-sampling we show that MB is reported scarcely, fast, and has low transitional dynamics, pointing to its role as a transient mental relay. MB's cerebral profile is linked to an overall positive connectivity pattern, bearing great resemblance to neural configurations observed in local sleeps, possibly reflecting neuronal silencing during wakefulness. We also find less efficient information flow between the default mode (DMN) and other networks before reporting MB. The DMN-salience network segregation was further able to classify MB from other reports in fewer steps, suggestive of an early saliency evaluation of contentless phenomenology along the neurocognitive hierarchy. Collectively, MB's unique neurofunctional profile among thought-oriented reports supports the view of instantaneous mental absences happening during wakefuless, paving the way for more mechanistic investigations of this particular phenomenology during ongoing mentation.

A generalized cortical activity pattern at internally-generated mental context boundaries during unguided narrative recall

“…We speculate that the between-movie boundary state may be a temporary “relay” state that occurs when no one mental model wins the competition to receive full attentional focus following the flushing of the prior mental context. Namely, when one major mental context switches to another, the brain may pass through a transient off-focus (Mittner et al, 2016) or mind-blanking (Mortaheb et al, 2022; Ward & Wegner, 2013) state which is distinct from both processing external stimuli (e.g., movie watching) and engaging in internal thoughts (e.g., memory recall). This account may also explain the difference between within- vs. between-movie boundary patterns: in terms of attentional fluctuation (Jayakumar et al, 2022; Song, Finn, et al, 2021), external attention is enhanced at within-movie event boundaries (Pradhan & Kumar, 2021; Zacks et al, 2007), whereas the relay state is associated with lapses in attention (deBettencourt et al, 2018; Esterman et al, 2014).…”

“…We speculate that the between-movie boundary state may be a temporary "relay" state that occurs when no one mental model wins the competition to receive full attentional focus following the flushing of the prior mental context. Namely, when one major mental context switches to another, the brain may pass through a transient off-focus (Mittner et al, 2016) or mind-blanking (Mortaheb et al, 2022;Ward & Wegner, 2013) state which is distinct from both processing external stimuli (e.g., movie watching) and engaging in internal thoughts (e.g., memory recall). This account may also explain the difference between within-vs.…”

“…Importantly, these between-context patterns were distinct from within-context event boundary detection signals. We speculate that the boundary state may be a temporary "relay" state that occurs when no one mental model wins the competition to receive full attentional focus (e.g., attention lapse, off-focus, mind-blanking; deBettencourt et al, 2018; Mittner et al, 2016;Mortaheb et al, 2021;Ward & Wegner, 2013) following the flushing of the prior mental context. An alternative, but not mutually exclusive, possibility is that the boundary state involves the recruitment of cognitive control to resolve the competition between mental contexts; the relative activation of the frontoparietal control network interdigitated with the DMN (Braga & Buckner, 2017) may contribute to the generalized boundary pattern.…”

A generalized cortical activity pattern at internally generated mental context boundaries during unguided narrative recall

“…We speculate that the between-movie boundary state may be a temporary ‘relay’ state that occurs when no one mental model wins the competition to receive full attentional focus following the flushing of the prior mental context. Namely, when one major mental context switches to another, the brain may pass through a transient off-focus ( Mittner et al, 2016 ) or mind-blanking ( Mortaheb et al, 2021 ; Ward and Wegner, 2013 ) state that is distinct from both processing external stimuli (e.g., movie watching) and engaging in internal thoughts (e.g., memory recall). This account may also explain the difference between within- vs. between-movie boundary patterns: in terms of attentional fluctuation ( Jayakumar et al, 2022 ; Song et al, 2021a ), external attention is enhanced at within-movie event boundaries ( Pradhan and Kumar, 2021 ; Zacks et al, 2007 ), whereas the relay state is associated with lapses in attention ( deBettencourt et al, 2018 ; Esterman et al, 2014 ).…”