default network

Yes.

Well, research shows us that when we are bored, you know, lacking stimulation, this engaging and meaningful, it turns on the default mode network of our brain.

which isn't a specific structure, but it's just a connection of different structures.

And it lights up and that turns on.

And when that default mode network is active, that's when we're able to process our thoughts.

It's what helps us figure out ourself, like who am I? What do I care about? It's the whole theory of mind happens within this default mode network.

So there's a lot of really important things when we get to that place where the default mode network is active.

The opposite of that is the task.

We're seeing that this podcast is growing, so I thought we had another episode this week.

Today, we're looking at the Brains Idle Engine, the default mode network.

We'll see what this is all about.

By the way, if you want to learn more about psychodynamic concepts in psychology, go to my sub stack, Psychodynamic Observations.

But new functional neuroimaging revealed the opposite.

Whenever a subject stops solving external puzzles or tracking environmental stimuli, a coordinated ensemble of brain regions surges into synchronized metabolic activity.

Coined the default mode network, this system acts as the biological foundation for self-referential thought and autobiographical memory and perspective taking.

The network revolves around three primary anatomical hubs, the medial prefrontal cortex, the evaluator of the self, so it processes social judgments, personal identity, moral decisions, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the precuneus, the central integration exchange.

The highest, most difficult model of all is the story of who we are and the idea that these are my thoughts and my actions.

Um, a network in our brain that's extremely important to know is called the default mode network, and it's strongly associated with autobiographical memory, imagining the future, reflecting on ourselves, thinking about other people's minds, and so forth.

When we aren't focused on the outside world, this region, the default mode, um, switches on.

It becomes active.

But those messages are s- very similar to our thoughts.

There is no I creating those thoughts.

They're simply thoughts arising, and then some language is adding an I to it, just like the way our default mode network adds the sense of an I subsequently to our thoughts.

There are no, there's no thinker.

Yeah.

But to do that effectively, the CEN has to shut down another major system, the default mode network, or DMN.

The library.

The library, yes.

The DMN has its hubs in the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate.

It is the network of resting wakefulness.

Right.

When you stare out the window and let your mind wander or recall an embarrassing thing you said 10 years ago, that is the DMN humming away.

And is this also correlated to, I'm assuming, but I just want to just spell it out.

So you're watching the DMN, if you're watching something, and the more disorganized this gets, is that correlated with the chance also of ego dissolution, where someone would actually say and feedback to you as the scientist to say, hey, look, I was completely dissolved and felt connected to everything and did not know where Jade began and everything else.

So this Change in default mode network is correlated with ego dissolution.

And also, it sounds like you're saying that's also correlated with degree of efficacy on some of these things that we'll talk about here in a minute, like depression and trauma and anxiety and things like that.

So my brain is just sampling those tracks and mashing them together.

What's fascinating here is that this remixing ability, scientists call it prospection, is heavily driven by a network in your brain called the default mode network or the DMN.

The

DMN.

Yeah.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the human brain operates as relentless prediction machine.