Mind blanking is a distinct mental state linked to a recurrent brain profile of globally positive connectivity during ongoing mentation
Mind blanking is a distinct mental state linked to a recurrent brain profile of globally positive connectivity during ongoing mentation
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Date
2022-10-04
Authors
Sepehr Mortaheb
Lauren Van Calster
Federico Raimondo
Manousos A. Klados
Paradeisios A. Boulakis
Kleio Georgoula
Steve Majerus
Dimitri Van De Ville
Athena Demertzi
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PNAS
Abstract
Mind blanking (MB) is a waking state during which we do not report any mental con-tent. The phenomenology of MB challenges the view of a constantly thinking mind.Here, we comprehensively characterize the MB’s neurobehavioral profile with the aimto delineate its role during ongoing mentation. Using functional MRI experience sam-pling, we show that the reportability of MB is less frequent, faster, and with lower tran-sitional dynamics than other mental states, pointing to its role as a transient mentalrelay. Regarding its neural underpinnings, we observed higher global signal amplitudeduring MB reports, indicating a distinct physiological state. Using the time-varyingfunctional connectome, we show that MB reports can be classified with high accuracy,suggesting that MB has a unique neural composition. Indeed, a pattern of globalpositive-phase coherence shows the highest similarity to the connectivity patterns asso-ciated with MB reports. We interpret this pattern’s rigid signal architecture as hinder-ing content reportability due to the brain’s inability to differentiate signals in aninformative way. Collectively, we show that MB has a unique neurobehavioral profile,indicating that nonreportable mental events can happen during wakefulness. Ourresults add to the characterization of spontaneous mentation and pave the way for moremechanistic investigations of MB’s phenomenology.
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Mortaheb S, Van Calster L, Raimondo F, Klados MA, Boulakis PA, Georgoula K, Majerus S, Van De Ville D, Demertzi A. Mind blanking is a distinct mental state linked to a recurrent brain profile of globally positive connectivity during ongoing mentation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Oct 11;119(41):e2200511119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2200511119. Epub 2022 Oct 4. PMID: 36194631; PMCID: PMC9564098.