What is it about?
We measure the tempo of heartbeats, breathing, and brainwaves — but, so far, we could not measure thoughts themselves like their tempo or duration. This study shows that thoughts have a measurable tempo. Different types of thoughts exhibit different duration, internal thoughts are longer and slower, while thoughts more related to a task at hand are shorter and faster.
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Why is it important?
We develop a novel methodology to measure the tempo of thoughts in the same way we measure the heartbeat, the breathing rate, and other bodily functions. This allows us to distinguish between distinct types of thoughts. By making the invisible visible — turning thought into something measurable — this study lays the groundwork for a future where diagnosis and treatment of mental illness can be more precise, personalized, and effective.
Perspectives
The study allows to characterize a mental feature like thoughts including its connection to the brain in a novel way, namely through time - this implies what recently has been introduced as Spatiotemporal Neuroscience. Importantly, our measurements can be used for the diagnosis of thought alterations as associated with mental disorders like depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.
georg Northoff
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Distinct timescales dissociate spontaneous thought dimensions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2427088122.
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