What Your Brain Does When You’re Doing Nothing

Your brain never turns off. Even when you give your mental muscles a break and just stare off into space, there’s still a lot going on between your ears. Neuroscientist Marcus Raichle explains what your brain is doing when you’re doing nothing.

[@thomasschon]

The brain is always dwelling on something, but I might not always notice or remember nonsensical trains of thought, as I sometimes lose self-awareness at times when I don't pay attention to the self.

[@thecomprehensionhub4612]

It crazy how cells came together and made a brain so that it can learn and label itself as cells that make up a brain.

[@landonconway79]

Or maybe it didn't. Maybe some higher power made a brain, and that higher power is God. How can a bunch of cells know how to come together form a brain, but the brain that was formed by the cells don't know how to make a brain?

[@thecomprehensionhub4612]

@@landonconway79 The joining of cells is God at work. However, the definition of God is not what you may think it is. It's much more universal and not confined to one being as the creator of all things, but rather all things are the creator.

[@landonconway79]

@@thecomprehensionhub4612 If you're trying to change my mind about who God is, it's not gonna work. Also, many people believe in aliens saying "we can not be the only ones. There must be something that is smarter than us and beyond our capabilities of comprehension". You see, God (as one being who created everything), is not a normal thing for a human brain to comprehend or understand and neither are aliens. So why do people believe in aliens instead of God? Well let me tell you... Aliens don't tell people things they don't want to hear. They don't say your a sinner who has problems but God does say this. So, people have a problem with God becuase they do not want to admit their wrongs. Jesus himself said why people hate christians... becuase they represent a God who tells them that they're in trouble. So, they go into denial about their wrongs and to every length to get rid of God and to not have him in their thoughts so they have a reason to continue to do the things that God says he hates (aka sins), becuase they would rather do those things that God hates (sins), rather than the things he loves, becuase it is harder to do what God wants us to do than to do what he doesn't want us to do. Just admit that God is real and you are a sinner like everyone else.

[@thecomprehensionhub4612]

@@landonconway79I'm just offering a new perspective, you chose whether your mind changes. I respect your views because there are valuable truths in the philosophies of Christianity. I won't debate you on your views because it's very apparent that it is not in your intention to broaden your field of view, because perhaps it might be more comforting for you to rely on religion to ease any anxiety about life after death. Whatever the case is, I just say don't be afraid to question everything and see whether it actually stands up to logical reasoning combined with emotional intution. Use both and keep that balance, the truth will always reveal itself when that is so.

[@landonconway79]

@@thecomprehensionhub4612 I just want to let you know I'm not hating on you or something becuase you have a different view. But, I do think it is important to state that the reason why I believe what I believe is becuase I have read the Bible on this topic. I know what it says, and I know that what I believe is not just "something that isn't in the Bible, but we don't know where the belief started from". I hold onto my Bible, and I do not lean on my own understandings, or the understandings of this world, but on my God's word alone.

[@TheYassaTube]

I fell in love with this guy when he said "my name's Marcus Raichle, and I'm a neuroscientist". 🥰 My limbic system reached peak activity in 0.1 second. Just so you know. I love biology and this guy is hella cool for me 😜😜😜

[@palantir135]

The music in the background is too loud and in fact unnecessary.

[@zooksy4541]

for a video about brain activity my attention was completely disrupted by how loud the piano is

[@hz7988]

lol

[@maribelru2011]

Wow. I need a course just to comprehend this message!

[@camtonyray666]

Always believed that instead of "predicting" the brain goes into "perceiving" because similarly to predicting, perceiving actually allows one to draw some semblance of a conclusion to base their understanding out of... which is generally why I would give something that I gave up on before another shot.

[@ashred9665]

Prof Raichle: Brain is in the prediction business. LLM: Hold my token

[@tompeace7907]

Most of us think according to learned, fragmentary symbols (that are representations). We habitually take these representations to be realities. However, the word "horse" -- or a mental pictorial image of a horse -- is not the horse. A truly aware and meditative mind may see holistically beyond these symbols (though it may often use them). Then it is not (at times) not merely predicting sequentially -- and thoughts are primarily sequential -- but may be perceiving directly (beyond mere images and patterns). Such awareness is holistic and is beyond sequential time and limited space. We often look through mental screens consisting of symbols and mental representations (so we may not be purely seeing at all). The perceiver is not separate from the perceived. Perception is, all too often, limited.

[@thomasschon]

Now I understand what's happening when I get distracted by something and suddenly start to act or move clumsily. It's my default mode network shutting down when an unexpected novel situation arises. The clumsiness comes from the fact that I need to pay attention to something that wasn't within prediction while navigating at the same time. Additionally, I haven't practiced the skills needed to do what the default mode network normally handles. Could that be it?

[@benjaminpepin2247]

The default mode network is what prevents us from experiencing enlightenment

[@thomasschon]

When the Default Mode Network goes online, What is my brain doing when I'm doing nothing? It might be driving my car back and forth to work, perhaps. Well, that sounds really safe and solid-not. Could one say that this might be a biological analogy to a self-driving car? 🤔

[@GJ-pj4mj]

After this video, all the trauma-attachment-theory make sense. If your brain is predicting base on its experiences, it will always predict catastrophic events, it will always be anxious, it will always see the bad side. Learn how to rewire is super important yet very difficult to understand.

[@zumraylmaz7229]

maybe it is possible with change to certein beliefs

[@MegaMissfitz]

Atleast you,ve got no processing to do this weekend! Enjoy the sunshine 😤😤😤

[@Tysoncage21]

Iv always wanted to be smart , is learning, memory, because i can watch a documentary, but not remember or can’t explain it to someone, we’re other people can explain it too a tea , I’m sick of being dumb

[@jeetjain579]

what's the name of the professor he mentions after 3:35?

[@NamasenITN]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Benjamin_Mountcastle

[@theomnithinker]

Vernon Mountcastle, a neurophysiologist and professor emeritus at John Hopkins.

[@juliecheatley4171]

Fascinating and essential research and a very good introduction to the understanding of the function of "Monkey Brain". But why the distracting music in the background???? It had, for me, the effect of my DMN not quiet down while I was focused on a task.

[@ajmarr5671]

How the neuroscience of meditation misses the point.(or other things the brain is doing when you are doing 'nothing' (nothing wrong with this video by the way. Raichle is an excellent neuroscientist, all he is saying is correct and important, below is just a complementary perspective) A major flaw in the neuroscience of meditation (or sitting still and being in the moment, or doing nothing) is that it does not address the affective component of meditative states, of how it feels, which is why people meditate in the first place. However, this clearly implicates relaxation and the states of alert arousal which elicit and enhance it, and this goes against the common narrative that meditation is a unique state rather than simple rest. Meditation research generally relies upon comparative self-reports of meditators and non-meditators, and data from fmri (functional magnetic resonance imaging) or brain scans that measure cerebral blood flow. However, neither can isolate the neuro-muscular and neuro-chemical activity that correlate with subjective affective states, or how neuro-muscular activity is a function of cortical activity as mapped to experience or learning. So, in service of the argument that meditation is rest, here is a simple hypothesis and proof that begins with the affective systems in the brain that mediate rest and its affective consequences. HYPOTHESIS: Dopaminergic activity will stimulate endogenous opioid systems when the latter are in a non-suppressed state. EXPLANATION AND ‘PROOF’: Activity that involves continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy or novelty (productive or meaningful behavior) while the covert musculature is inactive (a resting state) will result in heightened feeling of pleasure and arousal, or ‘eudaemonia’, ‘flow’, or ‘peak’ experience. This derives from the observation that neuro-muscular tension (or stress) inhibits endogenous opioid (pleasure) release, while relaxation accentuates it, the latter permitting opioid systems to be further stimulated by dopaminergic activity (arousal) elicited by meaningful behavior. The reason this explanation does not appear evident from general observation is that its counterpart as ‘flow’ or ‘peak’ experience is described through literary metaphor and not scientific language and obscures the independent and dependent measures that accurately describe it. The virtue of this explanation is that it is easily testable by anyone. Just get into a relaxed state (mindfulness protocols are the best way to do this) and then exclusively pursue or anticipate pursuing productive activity for periods of a half hour or so, and voila, you will have a flow or eudaemonic experience. It is that simple. I offer a more detailed explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below. www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing This above book is based on the research of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, a preeminent researcher and authority on dopamine, addiction, and motivation, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript. Berridge’s Site sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/ also: Meditation and Rest from the International Journal of Stress Management, by this author www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation

[@noahchrisella4644]

Can you dumb it down for me

[@hz7988]

thank you for sharing . very interesting

[@ajmarr5671]

A contrarian view on Resting States, Resting Brains, and Meditative States A resting state, or ‘somatic rest’, would seem to correspond with a brain at rest or ‘neurologic’ rest, but by definition, somatic and neurologic rest are entirely different things. A resting ‘state’ or somatic rest represents the inactivity of the striatal musculature that results from the application of resting protocols (continual avoidance of perseverative thought represented by rumination, worry, and distraction.). Resting states also are affective states, as they elicit opioid activity in the brain. Resting states in turn may occur in tandem with all levels of non-perseverative thought that are passive or active, from just passively ‘being in the moment’ or being mindful, to actively engaging in complex and meaningful cognitive behavior. The latter cognitive behavior is also additionally affective in nature due to its elicitation of dopaminergic activity, and resulting opioid-dopamine interaction results in a perceived state of ‘bliss’ or ‘flow’. On the other hand, a resting ‘brain’, neurologic rest, or the so-called ‘default mode network’ is a specific type of neural processing that occurs when the mind is in a ‘passive’ state, or in other words, is presented with no or very limited cognitive demands. This results in ‘mind wandering’ that can entail non-perseverative (creative thought) or perseverative thought (rumination, worry). As such a resting brain may or may not correlate with somatic rest, and is correlated with a level of demand, not a kind of demand, as in somatic rest. Like the broad color palate that emerges from the intermix of three primary colors, it may be argued that meditative states are simply emergent properties of two very distinctive neuro-physiological resting states that have separate and easily definable causes. It is remarkable that in the literature of meditation, the neuro-physiology of rest both in body and mind is not defined, with a similar neglect to how neuro-muscular activity is actively shaped by experience or learning. The importance of meditation is very real, and the meditative community is understandably averse to equating it with rest since it makes meditation less ‘special’ or less marketable. But that is my argument nonetheless, which in the end provides a better advocacy of meditation by denying that meditation elicits a unique physiological process or state, which like the concept of ‘phlogiston’, or the imaginary element that enabled fire, impedes rather than furthers scientific inquiry. www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation www.scribd.com/document/291558160/Holmes-Meditation-and-Rest-The-American-Psychologist

[@kamizilla7989]

FINNALY A VIDEO WITHOUT DISLIKES

[@peterbacon6898]

Sorry to disappoint: I found the talk fascinating but the background "music"--and I use the term loosely--was and is absolutely mind-numbing chewing gum for the ears!

[@nev3336]

Peter Bacon Bruh why

[@nev3336]

Peter Bacon Like it for the old man 👴

[@Yud45]

@@peterbacon6898 take it back

[@AnimeshSharma1977]

so the cost of always being busy predicting the future is about 20% of total energy with the engine working at 95-100%!

[@三小跨-b5g]

When I'm doing nothing, I kinda like worry so much about what I have not done yet, but i very enjoy doing nothing, maybe cause of my procrastination

[@apmire]

@@三小跨-b5g same, doing it rn

[@_elenaio_]

Very interesting

[@jakehodgson8505]

i love this

[@cheeseballs3825]

I feel like he didn't have any men in his study. I think women's brains don't shut off. I've had women ask me what I'm thinking about. I'm just like, ummm I'm watching TV. Not thinking about anything. Then they act like I'm being difficult.

[@szamszatan]

Terrible, loud distracting music

[@MariyaA-b6m]

👏🏻👍🏻

[@rr7firefly]

Get rid of the stupid music!