The brain mechanism of mind popping based on resting-state functional connectivity

Mind popping is the phenomenon of a word, sentence, image, or melody suddenly coming into the conscious mind. It occurs without any conscious memories, also known as unconscious semantic memory. So far, little is known about the neural basis of this phenomenon. Using the Mind-Popping Questionnaire, we examined the frequency of daily mind popping of 397 healthy college students and related the resting-state functions of the brain with it by means of resting-state functional connectivity analysis. On the basis of previous research, the parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampus were selected as regions of interest. The results showed that the Mind-Popping Questionnaire scores were significantly positively correlated with the functional connectivity strength of parahippocampal gyrus (x = -12, y = -35, z = 0) and supplementary motor area (cluster size = 126 voxels; peak coordinates in MNI: 15, -6, 57; P < 0.005, AlphaSim corrected, t = 2.58). This result, although not very strong, revealed a special connection of a subarea of the default mode network with the medial temporal lobe and the supplementary motor area, indicating that the neural mechanism behind mind popping may be the neural circuit of implicit semantic memory extraction. Copyright (C) 2019 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.