What Is Thought? Exploring the Neuroscience

Thoughts may be the most important content of our mental lives. Thoughts are unobservable and seemingly intangible, yet they determine what we do and therefore how our lives go. In this episode, I explore the neuroscience of human thinking. This livestream was originally aired live only for Patreon supporters of Sense of Mind. If you'd like to get access to future livestreams as well as exclusive blog posts, go to https://www.patreon.com/senseofmind. Timestamps: 00:00 What are thoughts? 03:20 The neuroscience of thought is young 04:00 Externally and Internally Generated Thought 06:45 The role of attention in thought 07:17 Spontaneous thought 09:35 External thought and the frontoparietal control system 11:20 Internal thought and the default mode network (DMN) 13:30 Social cognition and the DMN 17:10 Spatial working memory, vivid detailed thought, and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) 19:50 The context dependent nature of thought 22:15 The salience network as a switch between DMN and FPN 26:20 The potential role of hippocampal sharp wave ripples in spontaneous thought 28:46 Sensory systems in thought 29:35 Working memory in thinking (and corticostriatal memory gating) 32:14 Valuation, the anterior cingulate, orbitofrontal cortex, & ventral striatum 34:05 Language and human thinking 37:28 Feelings and other influences on thought 39:44 What do you think? -- Sources: Smallwood, J., Turnbull, A., Wang, H. T., Ho, N. S., Poerio, G. L., Karapanagiotidis, T., ... & Jefferies, E. (2021). The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought. Iscience, 24(3). Kucyi, A., Kam, J. W., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Christoff, K., & Whitfield-Gabrieli, S. (2023). Recent advances in the neuroscience of spontaneous and off-task thought: implications for mental health. Nature mental health, 1(11), 827-840. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/senseofmind/support