Association Between Individual Differences in Self-Generated Thought and Morphology of Gray Matter Structures

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/9p290c07b

Abstract

This thesis will be looking to see if there are any correlations between the volume of gray matter of various brain regions with the content of stimulus-independent thought, thought that doesn’t arise from external stimulus. This was done by administering a thought-sampling task to participants asking about their eight most common thoughts and probing them about the content of those thoughts on a variety of categories. The volume of gray matter was obtained through MRI, and six regions of interest were looked at specifically. Three of those regions are a part of the default mode network, which is a network of brain regions that are known to be more active when the brain is involved in internal mentation rather than processing external stimuli. The other three regions are not part of the default mode network but have functions that could be related to stimulus-independent thought. Significant results were found for only two regions, the precuneus and the anterior midcingulate cortex, both of which are a part of the default mode network. Both regions had positive correlations with measures of the emotional valence of the participants’ thoughts, more specifically greater brain volume was associated with a greater degree of positively valenced thoughts.

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