Default mode network

The default mode network is a set of interacting brain regions whose activity is prominent during internally focused thought and often decreases during demanding external tasks.

Medial prefrontal cortex: A frontal brain region involved in valuation, social cognition, and self-related processing. Its activity links the network to self-evaluation and judgments about other people.
Mind-wandering: A shift of attention from an ongoing task toward thoughts unrelated to that task. Its spontaneous, internally directed episodes often involve default-mode activity.
Marcus Raichle: An American neuroscientist known for research on brain energy use and large-scale functional networks. His group helped establish the network's role in the brain's baseline activity.
Dorsal attention network: A brain network that directs attention toward goal-relevant locations and objects. It supports externally oriented attention, contrasting with the network's internally focused activity.
Posterior cingulate cortex: A medial brain region involved in memory, attention, and internally directed cognition. It is a central network hub whose activity shifts with changes in attention.
Autobiographical memory: Memory for personally experienced events and the facts of one's own life. Remembering personal events engages network regions involved in internally focused thought.
Michael Greicius: A neuroscientist whose work helped map intrinsic brain networks using functional imaging. His resting-state imaging studies helped characterize the network's coherent activity.
Salience network: A brain network that detects behaviorally relevant events and helps coordinate other large-scale systems. It can help shift processing between internal thought and demands from the environment.
Angular gyrus: A region of the parietal lobe involved in language, memory, and integrating information. Its network connections help combine remembered and conceptual information.
Episodic future thinking: The mental construction of a possible future event using details from personal experience. The network helps combine memory elements when imagining personal futures.

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