Electrophysiological Signatures of Ongoing Thoughts during Naturalistic Tasks

Poster Session E - Monday, April 15, 2024, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Tarannum Rahnuma¹ (tarannum.rahnuma@ucalgary.ca), Sairamya Nanjappan Jothiraj¹, Alexandra Ouellette Zuk¹, Robert T. Knight², Julia W. Y. Kam¹; ¹University of Calgary, ²University of California

As humans, we constantly engage in a stream of consciousness representing our ongoing mental experience. While recent work has begun to examine the neural correlates of the dimensions of our ongoing thoughts, they have primarily focused on revealing brain activation and connectivity patterns of thoughts during constrained experimental tasks. The electrophysiological basis of various dimensions of ongoing thoughts outside of the experimental setting remains unexplored. To address this, we examined the electrophysiological signatures of ongoing thoughts in seven participants assessed in a naturalistic task setting across seven recording sessions. Based on a total of 49 datasets, our results revealed distinct oscillatory markers of multiple dimensions of ongoing thoughts as participants completed any computer-based activities they wish to perform. In addition to electrophysiological markers consistent with those observed in experimental settings, we found novel patterns that were not previously reported. Together, these results establish the electrophysiological signatures of numerous dimensions of ongoing thought, assembling a comprehensive set of brain-to-experience mapping of phenomenological features of thoughts. Our findings provide an important step towards predicting thought patterns in the real world with additional clinical implications for establishing biomarkers of typical and atypical thought patterns.

Topic Area: THINKING: Other