Increasing mind wandering with accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Autor: Aasen SR; Department of Psychology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Norway., Drevland RN; Department of Psychology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Norway., Csifcsák G; Department of Psychology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Norway., Mittner M; Department of Psychology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Norway. Electronic address: matthias.mittner@uit.no.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Neuropsychologia [Neuropsychologia] 2024 Nov 05; Vol. 204, pp. 109008. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 03.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.109008
Abstrakt: Mind wandering (MW) is the intentional or unintentional experience of attending to internal task-unrelated thoughts while being occupied with an external task. Even though maintaining task focus is assumed to require executive functions (EF), it is not clear how and to what extent MW and EF interact. Research has found that activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is associated with EF and MW. To understand the causal role of the DLPFC in relation to MW and EF, researchers have turned to non-invasive brain stimulation. Thus far, most studies have used transcranial direct current stimulation, but the results have been inconclusive. To further elucidate the relationship between the DLPFC, EF and MW, we conducted a pre-registered, sham-controlled, triple-blinded within-subject experiment by combining intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) interleaved with a recently developed MW-EF task. In contrast to our expectations, participants reported significantly more MW following real iTBS as compared to sham stimulation. However, at the same time, psychomotor precision and EF improved, indicating that participants were able to engage in resource-intensive MW while simultaneously performing well on the task. We argue that iTBS enhanced the underlying executive resources that could be used to increase both MW and task performance in line with the resource-control view of MW. This finding opens exciting avenues for studying the complex interplay between MW and EF and provides empirical support for the utility of iTBS in improving executive performance during a demanding cognitive task.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: