Modulation of mind wandering using auditory beat stimulation

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Jürgen Fell
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519846612

The term mind wandering refers to the drift of attention inward to thoughts, feelings and imaginations which are not related to the task at hand or current situation. Negative emotions aggravate mind wandering, which in turn, reduces mood. This vicious cycle contributes to the emergence of depressive disorder. Patients suffering from major depression exhibit increased mind wandering, in particular, concerning negative issues from the past. Here, we propose to investigate whether the propensity to mind wander and the temporal orientation of mind wandering can be modulated using auditory beat stimulation. This promising novel auditory brain stimulation technique uses sinus tones with slightly different frequencies. The tones are either superposed resulting in amplitude modulated signals (monaural beats), or they are applied separately to each ear (binaural beats). Both application types create a subjective beat sensation. Auditory beats have been shown to alter EEG dynamics, as well as to modulate state anxiety and memory performance. In two recent behavioral pilot studies, we have shown that monaural 5 Hz beats can reduce mind wandering in subjects with high baseline mind wandering. The proposed project aims to put this preliminary finding to the test, as well as to identify the neural correlates of mind wandering and its modulation by auditory beat stimulation. We plan to conduct one behavioral experiment in healthy participants and three intracranial EEG/single-unit experiments in epilepsy patients undergoing invasive presurgical diagnostics. Among the questions addressed by these experiments, the most important ones are: Can the frequency of occurrence of mind wandering be reliably reduced by monaural beat stimulation? What are the neural correlates of mind wandering and prolonged auditory beat stimulation? Which are the neural mechanisms underlying the modulation of mind wandering by beat stimulation? Answering these questions may spur the development of beat stimulation-based therapeutic interventions for application in depressive disorders.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants