Dorsomedial prefontal cortex supports spontaneous thinking per se
Open accessAbstract
Spontaneous thinking, an action to produce, consider, integrate, and reason through mental representations, is central to our daily experience and has been suggested to serve crucial adaptive purposes. Such thinking occurs among other experiences during mind wandering that is associated with activation of the default mode network among other brain circuitries. Whether and how such brain activation is linked to the experience of spontaneous thinking per se remains poorly known. We studied 51 healthy subjects using a comprehensive experience‐sampling paradigm during 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging. In comparison with fixation, the experiences of spontaneous thinking and spontaneous perception were related to activation of wide‐spread brain circuitries, including the cortical midline structures, the anterior cingulate cortex and the visual cortex. In direct comparison of the spontaneous thinking versus spontaneous perception, activation was observed in the anterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Modality congruence of spontaneous‐experience‐related brain activation was suggested by several findings, including association of the lingual gyrus with visual in comparison with non‐verbal–non‐visual thinking. In the context of current literature, these findings suggest that the cortical midline structures are involved in the integrative core substrate of spontaneous thinking that is coupled with other brain systems depending on the characteristics of thinking. Furthermore, involvement of the anterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex suggests the control of high‐order abstract functions to characterize spontaneous thinking per se . Hum Brain Mapp 38:3277–3288, 2017 . © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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The ConDialInt model cannot easily explain findings that some inner speech, such as spontaneous or other-voice inner speech, does not activate speech production areas.
“For example, as the model is based on the corollary discharge mechanism, it cannot easily explain findings that some inner speech (e.g. spontaneous or in other-voice) does not activate speech production areas (Hurlburt et al., 2016; Raij & Riekki, 2017; Yao et al., 2011).”
From Bridging phenomenology and neural mechanisms of inner speech: ALE meta-analysis on egocentricity and spontaneity in a dual-mechanistic framework (2023) · cites this paper as Raij & Riekki, 2017
The Results (Table I, p. 3282) list supplementary motor cortex activation for verbal thought. The Discussion also reports activation in regions corresponding to the motor representation of vocalization during spontaneous thinking—the opposite of the absence of speech-production activation for which this paper is cited. The paper does not assess other-voice inner speech or the ConDialInt model. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe convergence over L-MTG and L-STG is not attributable to a specific paradigm.
“The inclusion of studies utilising distinct paradigms: mind wandering sampling (Grandchamp et al., 2019; Raij & Riekki, 2017) and direct quotation reading (Alderson-Day et al., 2020; Yao et al., 2011), provides some evidence that the convergence over the L-MTG and L-STG are not attributable to a specific paradigm.”
From Bridging phenomenology and neural mechanisms of inner speech: ALE meta-analysis on egocentricity and spontaneity in a dual-mechanistic framework (2023) · cites this paper as Raij & Riekki, 2017
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Cites
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BackgroundMethodLarge-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data.
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BackgroundResultInfluential
Flagged first, then by citations
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Pratts, J., Pobric, G., & Yao, B. (2023) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120399 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“The inclusion of studies utilising distinct paradigms: mind wandering sampling (Grandchamp et al., 2019; Raij and Riekki, 2017) and direct quotation reading (Alderson-Day et al., 2020; Yao et al., 2011), provides some evidence that the convergence over the L-MTG and L-STG are not attributable to a…”
Background
- Authors
- Raij, T. T., & Riekki, T. J. J.
- Affiliations
- Helsinki University Hospital (FI)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Raij, T. T.
- Venue
- Human Brain Mapping
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-03-31
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 3277-3288
- ISSN
- 1065-9471 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-0193
- PMC
- PMC6866844
- OpenAlex
- W2597755976
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 0.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Human Brain Mapping (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Sigrid Jusélius Foundation
- European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007‐2013, 602478)
- Finnish Medical Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Keywords
- dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, default mode network, mind wandering, cortical midline structures, anterior cingulate cortex, visual cortex activation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Models, Neurological, Neuropsychological Tests, Oxygen, Perception, Photic Stimulation, Thinking, Verbal Behavior, Prefrontal Cortex, Comprehension, Young Adult, Healthy Volunteers
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