The brains scanned reveal what really happens when your mind is emptied

If you have ever had your mind empty while you are in the middle of something, you are far from alone. In studies published this week, scientists have made the blanking of the mind a true brain phenomenon.

Researchers from Belgium, France and Australia conducted the study, reviewing existing blanking data. They claim that the outbreak should be considered and studied as its own state of consciousness, similar to, but separately from things, such as your mind to wander.

The authors are all experts in consciousness research and have been inspired to collaborate after related Conference About three years ago. According to Athens Demertzi, director of the Liège University Physiology Laboratory, the topic of mind placing minds is not exactly new to some scientists, especially those who study meditation. But interest in him is also constantly collecting steam among researchers studying knowledge and sleep in recent years.

“Cognitive scientists have begun to admit that people can also experience moments of void during alertness in their daily lives,” she told Gizmodo in an email. “In the meantime, in the field of sleep and dreaming research, special categories of dreams, such as the so-called” white dreams “, where people remember that they dreamed but cannot extract any content, have attracted more attention.”

Demertzi and her colleagues have reviewed data from about 80 research reports related to Blanking Mind, which include their studies, where they measure the brain activity of people during the reported moments of volunteers who have nothing in their minds. And they came to a simple conclusion.

“Blinding the mind is real, it’s not just a matter of forgetting or failure to be reported. Sometimes during the day our stream of thoughts can just stop, leaving us trying to think about anything,” she said. “In our review, we show that the sound of the mind is not just a subjective impression or illusion. It corresponds to a clear state of the brain, which differs from those related to the experience of specific mental content.”

According to researchers, the sound of the mind is related to its own unique patterns of brain activity. In studies in which people have been explicitly asked to clear their minds for all thoughts, for example, brain scans reveal reduced activity in certain regions such as the additional motor bark and hippocampus. Electroencephalograms (EEG) data also show that parts of the brain can enter a dream -like state when we stand up.

Team findings, published On Thursday in the magazine, trends in cognitive sciences also suggest that people are experiencing the mind, a covenant between 5% and 20% of the time on average. And some people seem more likely to explode than others, such as those with attention deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD). This was said that more research was needed to confirm these discoveries and to answer many more open questions about the nature of the Testament of the Mind.

“For example, we still do not know how long the episodes of lushing, or whether there are different species. Can some cases be voluntary? Can men occur during highly effective conditions such as flow?” Demeters noted. “A more in -depth understanding of its neural mechanisms is needed. Does the mind trigger the result of failure to generate mental content or is it a failure of access (where the content exists but does not reach conscious awareness)?”

In the end, the authors hope that their work can inspire others in the area to start paying more attention to the outbreak. In the meantime, I just want scientists to one day to figure out where exactly in the brain all my obsessive thoughts about my cat come from.