ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2009
Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 690 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
690 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 1,803 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Neural mechanisms of brand love relationship dynamics: Is the development of brand love relationships the same as that of interpersonal romantic love relationships?Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Mindfulness in the focus of the neurosciences - The contribution of neuroimaging to the understanding of mindfulness.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Electrocortical Indices of Default Mode Network-Related Activity in ADHD and Modulation Through Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.Brain topography · 2026Trial
- The Interaction of the Dorsolateral and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex During Mind Wandering.Brain topography · 2023Trial
- Impaired disengagement from worry: Dissociating the impacts of valence and internally-directed attention.Behaviour research and therapy · 2023Trial
- A true response of the brain network during electroacupuncture stimulation at scalp acupoints: An fMRI with simultaneous EAS study.Brain and behavior · 2023Trial
- Effects of a randomised trial of 5-week heart rate variability biofeedback intervention on mind wandering and associated brain function.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Trial
- Effect of one-session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.Brain and behavior · 2021Trial
- Lapses of attention.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- No evidence for the impact of mind wandering on recognition associative task: an on-line preregistered study.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Retinotopic coding organizes the interaction between internally and externally oriented brain networks.eLife · 2026Article
- PDC-Net: A Prefrontal Dual-Channel Network with Gated Mamba Interaction for Cross-Subject Visual Attentional State Decoding.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Multiscale network reorganization during the multidimensional recollection of naturalistic events.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Ongoing thoughts at rest reflect functional brain organization and behaviour.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Shared and unique neural correlates of reappraisal generation and implementation.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- The maintenance of attention over time influences the dynamics of EEG microstates.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Sub-second fluctuations between top-down and bottom-up modes distinguish diverse human brain states.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- Altered intrinsic connectivity in default mode and somatomotor networks in children and adolescents with ADHD: a neuroimaging meta-analysis.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
630 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although mind wandering occupies a large proportion of our waking life, its neural basis and relation to ongoing behavior remain controversial. We report an fMRI study that used experience sampling to provide an online measure of mind wandering during a concurrent task. Analyses focused on the interval of time immediately preceding experience sampling probes demonstrate activation of default network regions during mind wandering, a finding consistent with theoretical accounts of default network functions. Activation in medial prefrontal default network regions was observed both in association with subjective self-reports of mind wandering and an independent behavioral measure (performance errors on the concurrent task). In addition to default network activation, mind wandering was associated with executive network recruitment, a finding predicted by behavioral theories of off-task thought and its relation to executive resources. Finally, neural recruitment in both default and executive network regions was strongest when subjects were unaware of their own mind wandering, suggesting that mind wandering is most pronounced when it lacks meta-awareness. The observed parallel recruitment of executive and default network regions--two brain systems that so far have been assumed to work in opposition--suggests that mind wandering may evoke a unique mental state that may allow otherwise opposing networks to work in cooperation. The ability of this study to reveal a number of crucial aspects of the neural recruitment associated with mind wandering underscores the value of combining subjective self-reports with online measures of brain function for advancing our understanding of the neurophenomenology of subjective experience.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.