Default neural network. What is it?
The more you delve into the brain's work and its correlation with productivity, the more interesting things you find. Time management becomes something like “the color of the walls” during a major renovation, and 24/7 roboton will take you not to the director's place, but to the local mental hospital. It may suddenly turn out that dreaming is as useful as brushing your teeth.
In almost every article we write about how there is no single “productivity center” in the brain. In the spirit of – stimulate this part of the cortex and you will be the second Jobs, Bezos or Musk. Productivitythe feeling of happiness, intelligence and creativity are based on a huge number of factors. And one of them is the default neural network.
Default neural network. Or when dreaming becomes useful
There is a myth that we use our brains at a fraction of a percent. The roots of the myth come from MRI scans of the brain, where there was marked activity in specific areas of the cerebral cortex. However, there is also a “passive” activity of our main body operator.
Energy consumption and its features
Nature does not create anything “with an eye to the future.” Everything that exists in organisms is the result of adaptation in the “here and now” mode, with an eye to survival and reproduction. At the same time, the human brain looks rather strange against the backdrop of such frugality.
Taking up 2% of the body weight, our brain consumes 20 percent of the total energy. Which is quite significant. At the same time, when we are intensively solving problems or working on some problem, energy consumption increases by 1 percentage point of the total consumption. Therefore, in the process of brain development, our body looked for ways to save energy consumption.
Therefore, in the process of brain research, the theory of the “default neural network” was built, which sounds like a default network, and the principles of its operation are used to work with disorders of the brain and central nervous system. In particular, in the treatment of autism.
Focusing and defocusing
Let's start with a clear example of a spherical horse in a vacuum: you can plug an electrical appliance into a socket at any time and it will work. You don't know whether there is electricity in the network or not. But, in order for there to be electricity, huge power plants work and they work 24/7. As does the default neural network. But what does it do in its passive mode?
Filters out irritants. This And this Research suggests that the default neural network takes in all the small noise of stimuli, helping them to “settle on the edge of perception” without affecting the basis of the brain’s functioning.
Supports flexibility of thinking. In essence, the default neural network extends and simultaneously holds all of our experience. Which already proves This And this research. That is, with its help we can combine and compare parts of our own different experiences.
Unites our Ego in peace. It is important not only to have consciousness, but also to integrate its qualities and abilities into the real world. As shown This And This research, the default neural network helps to implement such a double feedback.
When we are not busy with work and are literally doing nothing, our brain is in a state of “memory review”. We fall into memories, dream about the future, relax. At the same time, weaving and rechecking the integrity of ourselves as a person. When you have assembled an electrical device, and you ring all the nodes again to make sure it works.
Is it possible to improve the performance of the default neural network?
In fact, everything revolves around how neurons and neural connections communicate with each other. And of course, all of these processes are influenced by lifestyle, hormone levels, the synthesis of neurohormones in response to external stimuli, and preferred types of activity.
And here comes the moment when the previously discussed nootropics can actually have a quite visible and tangible effect. But not as stimulants or tools to increase vigor, but as fuel that helps to grow and debug the work of the entire network.
Adequate boost of neuronal growth factors, be it cocoa or hedgehog mushroom, reading books and experiencing strong impressions. Or just 15-60 minutes of time every day alone with yourself and your thoughts as well as mindfulness practices. All of this is equally useful and effective for the default neural network of our brain.
What does the default neural network help with?
The default network could be described as “personality integrity,” without repressed errors, lost memories, and with regular rechecking: to what extent does what I am doing now correlate with my vision of the future and is it a legacy of my past?
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