The ability to stay awake for a long time without thinking about anything It has been treated as a mystery reserved for meditation or described merely as an anecdote. Well, a team out Paris Brain Institute managed to identify specific brain signals associated with this phenomenon, challenging the assumption that alertness always accompanies it conscious mental activity.
The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesopen up new perspectives for understanding psychological functions and assessing psychiatric disorders.
The Spirit emptyAccording to the team at the Paris Brain Institute, is characterized by a complete lack of intellectual content: No recognizable images, melodies, worries or thoughts arise.
This experience is sought by those who practice meditation or mindfulness, but it can also occur after prolonged mental exertion or in sleep-deprived situations, they say Esteban Munoz Musata neurologist affiliated with the institute.
To illustrate this concept, many people report that after long minutes of concentrating on a monotonous task, they suddenly “wake up” and find that they no longer remember what they were thinking about, as if their mind had been completely blank during that time.
Although experts warn that the scientific definition still causes debate, they emphasize that in clinical profiles of diseases such as: B. an empty mind always occurs generalized fear and the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The study co-led by Munoz-Musat Lionel Naccache And Thomas Andrillonstudied 62 healthy volunteers. They were asked to perform monotonous cognitive tasks while their brain activity was recorded using high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) and their behavior was monitored. With this methodology we were able to identify exactly when the participants felt an empty head and link these episodes to specific brain changes.
The mindless episodes coincided with specific neurophysiological markers and behavioral patterns. A was recognized reduced connectivity between distant neural networks and one Change in the processing of visual informationparticularly during the phase known as “late visual processing,” which is usually related to conscious perception.
In addition, the volunteers showed increased sleepinessslower response times and a higher frequency of errors. As Andrillon points out, these data suggest that during mind blanking, access to sensory information from the environment is limited.
According to an analysis by the Paris Brain Institute, this shows that alertness does not necessarily equate to active consciousness: the empty mind is real interruption in the usual flow of thoughts.
The researchers emphasize that levels of consciousness vary in complex ways during wakefulness and sleep, going beyond a simple distinction between the two. Just as some people experience lucid dreams, a blank mind could be the opposite: a temporary loss of consciousness while fully alert.
The team estimates that this phenomenon can account for between 5 and 20% of waking time, with significant variation between people. From one point of view Neurophysiologically, mind blanking differs significantly from other states such as concentration or mental wandering, in which attention shifts to thoughts outside of the immediate context.
In this sense, the study thus provides objective bases to distinguish the empty mind as its own mental state.
For his part, Naccache proposes to rethink conscious experience as a mosaic of discrete states in which the a piece is missing It can cause brief moments of unconsciousness while awake.
The Paris Brain Institute expects further research to determine whether mind blanking can be a useful clinical resource for diagnosing certain neurological and psychiatric disorders, and to better understand how consciousness and attention work.
These results suggest that conscious activity is not a continuous stream, but rather a Series of differentiated moments where short pauses for thought are an essential part of the nature of human consciousness.
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