Biology subjects

Poerio, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Poerio, G..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Brain-thought states during movie-watching reflect shared sensory anchors and film- and person- specific processes in association cortex

Naturalistic paradigms such as movie-watching have transformed functional neuroimaging by capturing cognitive dynamics during rich, real-world experiences. A fundamental challenge, however, is determining whether the neural signatures identified during these experiences reflect general principles of cognition or the specific contexts in which they are measured. To address this question, we combined fMRI data from participants watching eight diverse films with continuous reports of ongoing thought. We found that the generalizability of brain-thought relationships depends on the cognitive process being recruited. Neural signatures linked to sensory processing remained robust across films, whereas those involving memory-related association networks depended on how we modelled between-film variability, indicating that cognition becomes increasingly context-dependent along the cortical hierarchy from sensory to association cortex. Within default and limbic networks, we identified two contrasting memory-related states with opposite consequences for comprehension. One, reflecting the integration of prior knowledge with ongoing experience, predicted better narrative comprehension and was revealed only after accounting for between-film variability. The other, associated with stimulus-independent thought, predicted poorer comprehension and emerged only when between-film variability was not modelled. Together, these findings establish when brain-experience relationships measured during naturalistic paradigms can generalize across contexts and when they instead reflect interactions between cognition and the specific environments in which cognition unfolds. More broadly, the consistency of a given brain-experiential association may depend less on where it occurs in the brain and more on the viewer's contextual experience: perceiving the film, drawing on memory to understand it, or drifting away.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Patterns of Ongoing Thought in the Real World and Their Link to Mental Health and Well-Being

The thoughts we experience in daily life have implications for our mental health and well-being. However, it is often difficult to measure thought patterns outside of laboratory conditions due to concerns about the voracity of measurements taken in daily life. To address this gap in the literature, our study set out to measure patterns of thought as they occur in daily life and assess the robustness of these measures and their associations with trait measurements of mental health and well-being. A sample of undergraduate participants completed multi-dimensional experience sampling surveys eight times per day for five days as they went around their normal lives. Principal component analysis reduced these data to identify the dimensions that explained the patterns of thought reported by our participants. We used linear modelling to map how these thought patterns related to the activities taking place at the time of the probe, highlighting good consistency within the sample, as well as substantial overlap with prior work. Multiple regression was used to examine associations between patterns of ongoing thought and aspects of mental health and well-being, highlighting a pattern of "Intrusive Distraction" that had a positive association with anxiety, and a negative association with social well-being. Notably, this thought pattern tended to be most prevalent in solo activities and was relatively suppressed when interacting with other people (either in person or virtually). Our study, therefore, highlights the use of multi-dimensional experience sampling as a tool to understand how ongoing thoughts in daily life impact on our mental health and well-being, and establishes the important role social connectedness plays in the etiology of intrusive thinking.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Patterns of Ongoing Thought in the Real-World

Previous research has indicated that health and well-being are impacted on by both the way we think, and the things we do. In the laboratory, studies suggest that specific task contexts affect this process because the people we are with, the places we are in, and the activities we perform may influence our thought patterns. In our study participants completed multi-dimensional experience-sampling surveys eight times per day for 5 days to generate thought data across a variety of dimensions in daily life. Principal component analysis was used to decompose the experience sampling data, and linear mixed modelling related these patterns to the activity in daily life in which they emerged. Our study replicated the influence of socializing on patterns of ongoing thought observed in our prior study and established that this is part of a broader set of relationship that links our current activities to how our thoughts are organised in daily life. We also found that factors such as time of day and the physical location are associated with reported patterns of thought, factors that are important for future studies to explore. Our study suggests that sampling thinking in the real world may be able to provide a set of comprehensive thinking-activity mappings that will be useful to researchers and health care professionals interested in health and well-being.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Hello, is that me you are looking for? A re-examination of the role of the DMN in off-task thought

Neural activity within the default mode network (DMN) is widely assumed to relate to processing during off-task states, however it remains unclear whether this association emerges from a shared role in self or social cognition. In the current study, we examine the possibility that the role of the DMN in ongoing thought emerges from contributions to specific features of off-task experience such as self-relevant or social content. A group of participants described their experiences while performing a laboratory task over a period of days. In a different session, neural activity was measured while participants performed self/other judgements. Despite the prominence of social and personal content in off-task reports, there was no association with neural activity during off-task trait adjective judgements. Instead, during both self and other judgements we found recruitment of caudal posterior cingulate cortex - a core DMN hub - was above baseline for individuals whose laboratory experiences were characterised as detailed. These data provide little support for a role of the DMN in self or other content in the off-task state and instead suggest a role in how on-going thought is represented.

neuroscience↗