What Your Brain Is Really Doing When Doing 'Nothing' : The Default Mode Network

When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network (DMN) is active. Its discovery 20 years ago inspired a raft of research into networks of brain regions and how they interact with each other. New research, including a recent study of the brain on psilocybin, is revealing the default mode networks's role in memory, social awareness and sense of self.

Related Papers:

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Chapters:
00:00 What is the default mode network?
00:43 Hans Berger and the discovery of the network
02:36 Functional brain networks
03:24 The network's role in episodic, prospective, and semantic memory
04:14 Connection to self-awareness, social cognition, and theory of mind
04:39 Mind wandering and self-reflection
05:06 Interaction with other networks and brain dysfunction
06:24 What psilocybin reveals about the network
07:46 How the network creates a sense of self

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[TaLeng]

Whenever I'm idle, my brain is busy inventing problems for me to worry about when I'm not idle.

[GrimJerr]

My Brain apparently keeps working on problems while I am doing something else, because the answer to a question or Idea I was thinking of will occur to me in the middle of another task.

[janeharry]

Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.

[encoderencoder]

Truly that is the reason why brilliant ideas ignite in your brain in a Bathroom, Bed,

[SpaceTimeTurtle]

Whenever I'm daydreaming (which is a lot), my mind always "shoots out" weird ideas, funny thoughts, or correlations.
I've long suspected that daydreaming is akin to a less impressive superpower.
If the mind never wanders, and thus is not allowed to connect disparate dots, I would be an automaton.
Psycho-naughts for the win! :):)

[kevinwhite]

I've made enormous strides in dealing with my anxiety since I learned about this a couple of years ago. I saw something quoting Ethan Kross from University of Michigan talking about how third-person self-talk would suppress the default mode network in people. I started doing it when I would catch myself having these "I'm going to make up a story about how something will happen in the future that isn't pleasant" and suddenly, as soon as I'd tell myself in the third person that I was doing it, it was like someone hit the pause button on something in my brain. That eventually led me to ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), which is based around "relational frame theory", however I think it dovetails into this whole DMN thing. The DMN is where those negative thoughts are 'coming from' and getting circulated back into when you get stuck in anxiety.

[daverei]

Let’s just hope that infinite scrolling and technology based stimulation doesn’t diminish the default mode network.

[thepoppersshow]

The artistic technique of “sit infeont of the page doing nothing” makes so much more sense now. Youre waiting for the default mode network to activate

[brianquigley]

Define "nothing". As I understand it, there's two basic types of meditation used to focus your mind. 1. busy meditation, i.e. mantras used to focus the mind. 2. stilness meditation, i.e. shutting off all thought. Form 1 is often used to get to Form 2, e.g. counting breaths. Having practised both, I can tell you that stilness meditation is virtually impossible. Usually, I can minimize the stray thoughts floating around, but it is a very, very rare moment that I find myself floating in that odd state of "no thoughts". And by "no thoughts" I mean no distress due to a physical pain in my body, no verbalizations, no static or moving images, no memories replaying, just a state of awareness of body and nothing else. This state of mind is so infrequent and so "alien" that I immediately pop out of this state of mind. If I'm lucky I can hold that state of mind for some seconds, maybe a minute. Reason? Millions of years of evolutionary survival that created the lizard brain (basal ganglia) and the surrounding mammalian surrounding cortex trained us to always be on the alert and/or preparing for the next crisis.

[LuisAldamiz]

My personal take, as I'm experiencing this "default mode" more and more these days (no drugs involved, rather an "om" phase I'm having), is that the brain is "listening" to a large extent but also "quietly processing" (without any rush nor particular priority).

[eduardoaraujo]

I was constantly on daydreaming mode while I was a kid. When I was on the car my mind was always wandering and loved the ideas that would come out of it. Also I saw things a lot clearer and everything was easier to learn. In my teenage years I tried drugs for the first time and immediately you could tell I was very susceptible to psychosis. One time, very early in my drug carreer (less than 10 joints I smoked in total), I started getting into actual psychosis. I stopped drugs immediately, but I felt like I was always on the edge of having an full strength episode without actually having it. My dmn became scrambles and pretty painfull to experience mentally. I am being treated for that for some years now and while I did not have major episodes I still battle with minor ones constantly. I feel like I am not a quick learner anymore and my dmn is not the same as before. A bit more foggy and devoid of mind wandering experiences . I miss the sharpness of my years before this event although overall I am doing pretty well.

[abhilasha]

Its so cool that our brain has a default mode

[haudi]

This is very interesting stuff and touches on where the self comes from. Perhaps sometime in the future this research may provide answers to how consciousness is produced. Very cool. Thanks for the post!

[klawiehr]

I was hoping you’d go into psilocybin’s effect on neuroplasticity here :) amazing that the idea of the default mode network is so new

[edffa]

My brain runs both modes at the same time, all the time. ADHD 💪 HELL YEAH

[dann_y]

Default Mode Network is involved in introspection. Executive Control Network is involved in outward concentration. Saliance network switches between the two. Also, creativity or even a "flow" state arises in the optimal condition where these large-scale neural networks can fluidly communicate, activating and reactivating, enabling you to think and gain insight about a certain task, like when mind-wandering or even after focusing on work in a more restful, imaginative state

[PueMonTen]

The test subjects weren't doing "nothing", they were resting. Resting is doing something. I regularly dive into sensory deprivation so I have the right to this opinion. The brain does not want to be denied sensation so in the absence of that, it will create its own. In doing so, the brain is effectively doing gymnastics. You may be laying down with your eyes closed just simply breathing but a lot of energy is still being used. You can settle brain down and eventually you can reach "nothing" but that is a field apart from this study. I just felt that this was a very important distinction to make

[simontemplar]

Rarely do I see something that I have not heard before these days. This is new to me. Thanks.

[emmanuelweinman]

My brain makes other peoples’ brains very confused 😂 My brain is mostly space, because I am spirited, so it’s hard to find “me”. Fully experiencing the same spirit of life all around and within all of us is absolutely mind blowing ❤️🙏🏼

[Dr_Larken]

The human body especially the brain is amazing! Not too long ago, I came across a experiment/ study of 2 groups “Control-C & Normal- N” where both groups did the same thing in seven days however the control group was blindfolded “ Don’t remember exactly how, but they were blinded During the experiment” Doing the same basic “everyday” task + more Extensive task “learning braille etc”!
Obviously, I’m summing this up but the findings were At First the C Struggled, adjusting to not being able to see. After that almost like unlocking a new sense. The brain no longer had to process visual information, freeing up brain “processing” power! Comparing both groups learning braille, the C learned it relatively quicker than the N group. Along with some other stuff!

However, on the last day when the C group regained access to their eyes. Almost immediately the majority of what they learned of braille, faded away. Kind of like the brain needed that space back!

I look at the human body as an engineering masterpiece, a machine! The brain is the computer running that machine! The brain has a hard drive “long term memory”, RAM “short term memory” it’s consistently processing a ton of information from all senses! Filtering Information received giving a value to it “relevant, irrelevant, important, Possibly important, garbage etc” kind of like an algorithm “or multiple algo’s” always adjusting learning from new Information! Requiring energy “bioelectric” if its low on power there are issues and if it completely looses power, the HDD & RAM may be corrupted or “almost” completely wiped! From every few days to over a decade “if I remember correctly” your body gets a complete hardware update “growing & replacing new skin, hair, muscle, bone” whilst the brain is constantly making new connections storing data, overwriting older data! Again this is a massively oversimplification, but what logical person wouldn’t think that the body is amazing! Understanding a tiny bit of how one of the almost perfectly engineered biomechines functionality, w/ a brain “computer” to to control & maintain it. Plus its own immune system “antivirus” sleep mode, even when the body or part/ parts of z body is lacking, starved it shuts down parts to preserve the vital, most crucial parts. If it’s overwhelmed with extreme pain causing the person to pass out! It even can over heat! Depending on the environment, habitat, lifestyle, parents genetics and a sh¡t avoirdupois of other variables. Evolving to gain or loose something “up or downgrade” ie the “model” consistently in the sun, hot climates their “shell, case” skin pigmentation will adjust “evolve” to a darker tone better suiting the brutal pounding of that radioactive lamp in our solar system! Millions of years in humanities past, when sky islands existed out of reach. Humans ancestors evolved to have wings “along w/Other things such as 6ft+ long tails” along with more complex brains. Allowing us to dominate those sky Islands, Molding nature to our will forcing said islands back to the earth. Creating great, fisher and cracks upon the massive land surfaces. With a side effect breaking that large single land mass into multiple pieces, slowly separating from each other! Over Millennia Some of that land sunk below the waves, others rose above.

So the human body is a advanced being controlled by advanced computer, Perhaps capable of wireless connections “Bluetooth and or Wi-Fi” that been forgotten or gradually used less & less, eventually no longer used leading to have been forgotten. Annndddd if that’s the case then Information would have been transferred the same way between people and something like the cloud “universal consciousness” storing data on a level FB, Goog’s etc would be envious of. Storing each and every experience, thought, emotion, action, Interpretation, outlook, knowledge along with that individual’s unique understanding or lack their of. When the hardware eventually completely fails or gets fatal damaged beyond repair. That energy “consciousness” is transferred in some for or another back to the cloud, absorbed into a pool mixed with all of those billions of consciousness’s that completely the same process and billions that inevitably will! Only for that pool/ cloud to upload a relatively identical average “scoop” of all of that mixed cocktail of consciousness to another human fetus, auto downloading upon reaching a point of assembly when that individual brain goes online. As if it had a BIOS, once the process of all the cells reaching a point of progress during the assembly, enough wiring ran over the frame & through the internals connecting everything to turn on the power, running the necessary parts “organs, blood flow etc” establishing a connection to the brain thus allowing automated control whilst the rest continues to be built. Receiving a lot from its host “z Mum” until reaching a point its able to be removed from the factory. Hopefully without any defects, issues etc. as once it leaves z factory, that’s it! Even though the process isn’t complete, It continues on outside said baby factory. As adjustments are made, parts grown expand with time including z brain. Given it only has Essentially factory settings however, one could argue when z baby’s downloaded Consciousness APK…. Хорошо, я был бы полностью шокирован, если бы вы прочитали все это! За это я приветствую тебя! Прошу прощения за то, что увлекся в конце! Тем не менее, кому не нравится хорошая пряная история!