Editorial: The Ups and Downs of Mind-Wandering in Adolescents

The human brain is always active; it wanders freely during rest as well as when we lose focus during tasks. Mind-wandering encompasses spontaneous thinking, such as processing recent experiences, problem solving, and achieving insights. Understanding this unconstrained brain activity may lead to clues about the neural mechanisms of mental health problems. Brain networks implicated in mind-wandering include the default mode network (DMN), the salience network, and task-positive networks including the frontoparietal control network and dorsal attention network.¹ Given that these networks mature during adolescence, coinciding with a time notable for the emergence of mental health problems, quantifying and examining the neural correlates of mind-wandering in adolescents with psychopathology may shed light on how the healthy and pathological brain functions and point to possible methods of intervening.