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PAY attention please, using as much of your brain as possible. When your mind wanders during a boring task, it may be because parts of your brain simply disconnect.

Knowing that activity in different brain regions changes when attention lapses, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wondered if there were also changes in the crosstalk between regions.

Weissman asked volunteers to spend a tedious hour in a functional-MRI brain scanner, identifying letters that flashed on a screen. At times, their reactions slowed, showing that attention was…