Just doing nothing (Image: Unsplash)
Sometimes you just don’t have the energy and your day ends exactly as it started: lazing on the couch. At times like that it seems like your brain has nothing to do, but science thinks otherwise.
When you’re doing something, like lifting weights at the gym or taking a difficult exam, the parts of your brain needed for that task become active. This happens because the neurons in your brain show more electrical activity.
But as soon as you spend a day on the couch, the brain doesn’t necessarily have to get to work. Is your upstairs room still active? According to science, the answer is more complicated than you think.
According to science, this is what happens to your brain when you do nothing
Scientists have discovered that the answer is yes. Over the past two decades, they’ve discovered something called the “default mode network.” This is a collection of parts of your brain that become active when you are lazing around.
The discovery of this ‘slacker mode’ has sparked curiosity among brain scientists about what the brain does when there is no important task at hand. Although some researchers thought that the main function of the default mode network was to allow us to daydream, there are many other possible tasks.
All connections are unique! (Image: Unsplash)
In fact, a malfunctioning default mode network in the brain has been linked to almost every psychiatric and neurological disorder. Including depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Since that time, many studies on the default mode network have complicated the concept. “It’s very interesting to see what kinds of different tasks and situations the default mode network has engaged in over the past 20 years,” Lucina Uddin, a brain scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Quanta Magazine.
What exactly does ‘slacker mode’ do?
The default mode network is one of the first brain networks identified by scientists. It consists of a few brain areas at the front of the brain and others scattered throughout the brain.
According to science, these areas play a role in reliving experiences, predictions, thinking about actions, reward/punishment and integrating information. All those little rooms in the brain allow you to daydream, reminisce, think about what others think, imagine the future and understand language.
Your brain (Image: Unsplash)
This may all seem random, but scientists think all of these things help create a story about yourself. It helps you think about who you are compared to others, you remember things from the past and you put it all together into a logical story about yourself.
All kinds of complicated processes take place in the default mode network. The zone is involved in many different processes in the brain that cannot be easily described. “It’s kind of crazy to think that we’ll ever say, ‘This brain region or this brain network only does one thing,’” Uddin said. “I don’t think it works that way.”
Does the default mode network influence depression?
Researchers also looked at whether mental health problems, such as depression, could be linked to problems with the default mode network. So far the findings are unclear.
For example, in people with depression, some researchers have found that the networks are “overly connected,” while others have found the opposite.
Bad mood… (Image: Unsplash: Gadiel Lazcano)
And in some studies, the default mode network itself is not abnormal, but its interactions with other networks are. Whether the lazy mode really has something to do with it has not yet been proven with certainty.
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2024-03-09 07:14:00
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