Back in 2013, I wondered if we would ever discover the neural basis of spontaneous thoughts. Why, I asked, do certain ideas just "pop" into our minds at particular times? Now
a new paper published in Neuroimage,
Canadian neuroscientists Melissa Ellamil and colleagues examines this issue. Ellamil et al. recruited a group of 18 volunteers, all of whom were highly experienced practitioners of mindfulness meditation. These individuals were selected, the authors say, because they are better at the introspective task of noticing which thoughts are 'spontaneous', which can be difficult. The volunteers underwent fMRI scanning during which they were told to focus on their breathing; they had to press a button at the moment when a new thought arose. In a control task, the participants had to press a button whenever a word appeared on the screen. Ellamil et al. looked for activity that preceded the onset of each thought, ...
