I see that TheBrain 12 has added this feature of automatic recognition when you type the name of an existing thought:
https://www.thebrain.com/products/thebrain/thebrain12

Automatic Recognition of Mentions
- When a thought name appears within notes it is recognized automatically.
- Mentions are highlighted and respond to a right-click with a context menu to activate the mentioned thought or convert it to a direct link.
- Mentions utilize intelligent recognition of plural and singular word forms so exact matches are not required.

Related Thought Display in Content Area
- Mentions: Thoughts whose notes contain the name of the active thought even if not explicitly linked.


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

This is so useful, and yet so rare a feature. I'm only aware of
Brainstorm and Zulupad (none developed anymore) that can do such a
thing.

In fact, a quick search found my mentioning this several times in this
forum, e.g. https://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/9302

MadaboutDana wrote:
>I'm especially impressed by the way it draws phrases
>that are identical to page names to your attention (as "unlinked
>references") so you can turn them into actual links if you want to.