Open Collections

An, Ni

University of British Columbia

After experiencing concussions, many individuals report persisting (> 3 months) post-concussion symptoms (PCS), including lingering cognitive challenges. Our study aimed to investigate whether PCS may include alterations to normative patterns of mind-wandering. Specifically, we sought to examine if individuals experiencing PCS tend to experience deeper levels of inattention during episodes of mind wandering. Participants performed a target recognizing task while periodically reporting their attentional state, and Electroencephalogram was recorded during this task. We hypothesized that cognitive post-concussion symptom is associated with a higher rate of mind wandering and deeper inattention during mind wandering. Our data suggests that consistent with previous research, the mean amplitude of the P300 Event-Related Potential (ERP) component elicited by visual targets during the task was significantly lower when participants were mind wandering compared to when they were on the task. However, this effect of attentional state on the P300 amplitude did not vary between the post-concussion and healthy group, suggesting that persisting cognitive challenges in PCS may not extend to pathologies in off-task attentional states.

Text

2024-09-06

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89203

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/