Did you know that we humans think more than 6000 thoughts during a day?
By looking at patterns in brain measurements that have been nicknamed thought worms, researchers in Canada have found that an average person has over 6,000 thoughts every single day.
Thought worms – an important discovery about how we think
Thought worms may sound like something from a science fiction film, but are a new discovery in cognitive neuroscience about how we humans think. Thought worms, or “thought worms”, are a form of visualization of thoughts and thought sequences in people, and are a concept that was introduced by Dr. Jordan Poppenk at Queen’s University in Canada. 1
A revolutionary visualization technique
In an article published in the renowned journal Nature Communications1, the researchers show how thoughts and transitions from one thought to the next can be visualized as small worms in measurements of the brain. In the experiments, healthy volunteer subjects were connected to advanced devices that measured differences in brain activity at rest and when watching a film.
When the researchers analyzed the results, they could see how the pattern of worms on images of the brain marked the start and end of trains of thought in the subjects. It is these patterns that, in a simplified representation, can be shown graphically as small worms – hence the name thought worms.
According to Dr. Poppenk, the big breakthrough came when they stopped trying to understand the content of the thoughts, but instead focused on finding out when one thought transitioned into another. 2 He describes that they gave up understanding the vocabulary of the brain in favor of finding out where commas and periods were placed.
A breakthrough in neuroscience
Dr. Poppenk’s research shows that the brain “shifts gears” more than 6,000 times each day, and marks a breakthrough in neuroscience, as it gives us a tool to measure thoughts and thought patterns. The thought worms have given us the opportunity to see how many thoughts we have during a day or see how the frequency of thought transitions changes during different activities.
This type of research has previously been done with more primitive methods, such as having the subject say when they think a new thought. However, this is a poor technique for studying mental activity during rest.
The next plan for the researchers is to use this new and revolutionary method to map and identify different states of mind that make a difference in thought patterns.
The brain – a hard-working thinking machine
It is important that the brain has everything it needs to function properly. Two capsules of Romega contain 320 mg of DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid that is abundant in the brain and that helps maintain normal brain function.*
*) A beneficial effect is achieved with a daily intake of 250 mg DHA.
Sources:
1) Tseng, J. & Poppenk, J. (2020). Brain meta-state transitions demarcate thoughts across task contexts exposing the mental noise of trait neuroticism. Nat. Commun. , 11 , 3480.
2) https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/discovery-thought-worms-opens-window-mind , published July 13, 2020, retrieved September 8, 2020.
