Humans have always tried to understand how our brain works during daydreams. A team of scientists from the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research (CNIR) is learned to have understood with the help of machines and special brain scans. KIM Hong Ji and WOO Choong-Wan led the study.
Our brains are always busy. The brains are busy even when we are not doing anything. Sometimes thoughts pop into without any reason or effort and these can be about anything like things that happened in the past or what we hope will happen in the future. Moreover, the thoughts often come with feelings.
However, studying such thoughts is hard as these happen without our realization. Simply asking someone what they are thinking about can change their thoughts.
The researchers found a way to predict what people are feeling during these thoughts. They asked the participants to tell stories about their lives while getting special brain scans. They also asked them to read the stories again and say how much they related to them. They asked them to figure out whether they felt good or bad while reading.
Computers were used to analyze the data and it was found that certain parts of the brain were really important for predicting how people felt. The parts were like the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex.
What is exciting here is that they found these methods could work even when people were just daydreaming or taking some rest. This could help us understand more about how our minds work and people suffering with mental health can get help.
Dr. WOO Choong-Wan said that the study mainly focused on the emotions behind such thoughts. They hope this could help improve mental health of people.
