The wandering brain: Meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of mind-wandering and related spontaneous thought processes

Abstract

The neural basis and cognitive functions of various spontaneous thought processes, particularly mind-wandering, are increasingly being investigated. Although strong links have been drawn between the occurrence of spontaneous thought processes and activation in brain regions comprising the default mode network (DMN), spontaneous thought also appears to recruit other, non-DMN regions just as consistently. Here we present the first quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of spontaneous thought and mind-wandering in order to address the question of their neural correlates. Examining 24 functional neuroimaging studies of spontaneous thought processes, we conducted a meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation (ALE). A number of key DMN areas showed consistent recruitment across studies, including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, medial temporal lobe, and bilateral inferior parietal lobule. Numerous non-DMN regions, however, were also consistently recruited, including rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, insula, temporopolar cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and lingual gyrus. These meta-analytic results indicate that DMN activation alone is insufficient to adequately capture the neural basis of spontaneous thought; frontoparietal control network areas, and other non-DMN regions, appear to be equally central. We conclude that further progress in the cognitive and clinical neuroscience of spontaneous thought will therefore require a re-balancing of our view of the contributions of various regions and networks throughout the brain, and beyond the DMN.

A Neural Model of Mind Wandering

“…This conceptualization fits well with findings indicating that brain networks involved in cognitive control (e.g., the fronto-parietal network) are also active during episodes of mind wandering [3,[46][47][48] indicating that these networks are involved in actively guiding internal trains of thoughts or protecting it against external stimuli.…”

Spontaneous eyelid closures link vigilance fluctuation with fMRI dynamic connectivity states

“…As such, it is important to point out that although we focused specifically on vigilance, pegging a pattern classifier to other interesting mental states should be feasible, the key challenge being to find a physiological proxy for mental state of interest that can be observed without interrupting the natural flow of thought. A particularly fertile ground to explore would be heterogeneous mind-wandering states (53). Future work could also lend fresh meaning to the metaphor "changing mental gears" when speaking of transitions in mental effort.…”

Conjoint influence of mind-wandering and sleepiness on task performance.

“…Although this proposal remains to be investigated in detail, it is in line You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) with the results of recent neuroimaging studies (e.g., Chee & Chuah, 2007;De Havas, Parimal, Soon, & Chee, 2012;Drummond et al, 2005;Maire et al, 2015) showing that performance decreases resulting from sleep deprivation are not only associated with reduced activity in frontoparietal regions supporting attentional control processes, but also with increased activity in the default network, a set of brain areas which has consistently been associated with mind-wandering (for a meta-analyses on the neural correlates of mindwandering, see Fox, Spreng, Ellamil, Andrews-Hanna, & Christoff, 2015;Stawarczyk & D'Argembeau, 2015).…”