Introducing the brain: when on idle (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 05, 2024, 18:13 (290 days ago) @ David Turell

The default mode:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-your-brain-is-doing-when-youre-not-doing-anything-2...

"Over the past two decades they’ve defined what’s known as the default mode network, a collection of seemingly unrelated areas of the brain that activate when you’re not doing much at all. Its discovery has offered insights into how the brain functions outside of well-defined tasks and has also prompted research into the role of brain networks — not just brain regions — in managing our internal experience.

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"The discovery of the default mode network ignited curiosity among neuroscientists about what the brain is doing in the absence of an outward-focused task.

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"According to research, the effects of the default mode network include mind wandering, remembering past experiences, thinking about others’ mental states, envisioning the future and processing language. While this may seem like a grab bag of unrelated aspects of cognition, Vinod Menon, the director of the Stanford Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, recently theorized that all of these functions may be helpful in constructing an internal narrative. In his view, the default mode network helps you think about who you are in relation to others, recall your past experiences and then wrap up all of that into a coherent self-narrative.

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"She’s particularly interested in how the default mode network interacts with the salience network, which seems to help us identify the most relevant piece of information at any given time. Her work suggests that the salience network detects when something is important to pay attention to and then acts as an off switch for the default mode network.

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"Meanwhile, Menon has developed what he calls the triple network theory. It posits that abnormal interactions between the default mode network, the salience network and a third one called the frontoparietal network could contribute to mental health disorders including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, dementia and autism. Typically, the activity of the default mode network decreases when someone is paying attention to an external stimulus, while activity in the two other networks increases. This push and pull between networks may not work the same way in people with psychiatric or developmental disorders, Menon suspects.

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"The current understanding of the default mode network is surely not its endpoint, either. Since its discovery, it has pushed neuroscientists to think beyond the responsibilities of single brain regions to the effects of interactions between brain networks. And it’s driven many people to appreciate the inward-focused activities of the mind — that even when we’re daydreaming or at rest, our brain is hard at work making it happen."

Comment: not mentioned is the work the brain does while sleep creating dreams. That the brain has interlocking regions is not surprising.