Thoughts Control

Editing Consciousness: How Bereaved People Control Their Thoughts Without Knowing It

NEUROSCIENCE NEWSDECEMBER 10, 2018

Summary: Using machine learning to analyze fMRI brain scans of grieving people, researchers shed light on how unconscious suppression occurs.

Source: Columbia University.

People who are grieving a major loss, such as the death of a spouse or a child, use different coping mechanisms to carry on with their lives. Psychologists have been able to track different approaches, which can reflect different clinical outcomes. One approach that is not usually successful is avoidant grief, a state in which people suffering from grief show marked, effortful, repeated, and often unsuccessful attempts to stop themselves from thinking about their loss. While researchers have shown that avoidant grievers consciously monitor their external environment in order to avoid reminders of their loss, no one has yet been able to show whether these grievers also monitor their mental state unconsciously, trying to block any thoughts of loss from rising to their conscious state.

The brain networks respectively involved in controlling attention towards the deceased (red) and representing the deceased (blue). During a 10-minute period of mind-wandering, avoidant grievers engaged the control network to block representations activated in the representation network from reaching consciousness. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Noam Schneck/Columbia Engineering.