Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34296151›Full record

ArticleCerebral cortex communications2021

Mind-wandering Is Accompanied by Both Local Sleep and Enhanced Processes of Spatial Attention Allocation.

Christian Wienke, Mandy V Bartsch, Lena Vogelgesang, Christoph Reichert, Hermann Hinrichs, Hans-Jochen Heinze, Stefan Dürschmid

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cerebral cortex communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
1.2field-weighted citation impact, top 25% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Broadband high-frequency activity initializes distractor suppression.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.

Christian WienkeDepartment of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Str. 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-9962-8823
Mandy V BartschDepartment of Behavioral Neurology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestr. 6, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany.
Lena VogelgesangDepartment of Behavioral Neurology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestr. 6, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany.
Christoph ReichertForschungscampus STIMULATE, Otto-von-Guericke University, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany.
Hermann HinrichsDepartment of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Str. 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
Hans-Jochen HeinzeDepartment of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Str. 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
Stefan DürschmidDepartment of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Str. 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases · DELeibniz Institute for Neurobiology · DEOtto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg · DECenter for Behavioral Brain Sciences · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Mind-wandering (MW) is a subjective, cognitive phenomenon, in which thoughts move away from the task toward an internal train of thoughts, possibly during phases of neuronal sleep-like activity (local sleep, LS). MW decreases cortical processing of external stimuli and is assumed to decouple attention from the external world. Here, we directly tested how indicators of LS, cortical processing, and attentional selection change in a pop-out visual search task during phases of MW. Participants' brain activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography, MW was assessed via self-report using randomly interspersed probes. As expected, the performance decreased under MW. Consistent with the occurrence of LS, MW was accompanied by a decrease in high-frequency activity (HFA, 80-150 Hz) and an increase in slow wave activity (SWA, 1-6 Hz). In contrast, visual attentional selection as indexed by the N2pc component was enhanced during MW with the N2pc amplitude being directly linked to participants' performance. This observation clearly contradicts accounts of attentional decoupling that would predict a decrease in attention-related responses to external stimuli during MW. Together, our results suggest that MW occurs during phases of LS with processes of attentional target selection being upregulated, potentially to compensate for the mental distraction during MW.

Indexed as

high-frequency activitylocal sleepmind-wanderingN2pcvisual spatial attention

Identifiers

PMID34296151
PMCPMC8153027
OpenAlexW3121591744

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.