Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Oct;20(10):593-608.
doi: 10.1038/s41583-019-0212-7. Epub 2019 Sep 6.

The brain's default network: updated anatomy, physiology and evolving insights

Randy L Buckner  1   2   3   4 , Lauren M DiNicola  5   6
Affiliations
Review

The brain's default network: updated anatomy, physiology and evolving insights

Randy L Buckner et al. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Discoveries over the past two decades demonstrate that regions distributed throughout the association cortex, often called the default network, are suppressed during tasks that demand external attention and are active during remembering, envisioning the future and making social inferences. This Review describes progress in understanding the organization and function of networks embedded within these association regions. Detailed high-resolution analyses of single individuals suggest that the default network is not a single network, as historically described, but instead comprises multiple interwoven networks. The multiple networks share a common organizational motif (also evident in marmoset and macaque anatomical circuits) that might support a general class of processing function dependent on internally constructed rather than externally constrained representations, with each separate interwoven network specialized for a distinct processing domain. Direct neuronal recordings in humans and monkeys reveal evidence for competitive relationships between the internally and externally oriented networks. Findings from rodent studies suggest that the thalamus might be essential to controlling which networks are engaged through specialized thalamic reticular neurons, including antagonistic subpopulations. These association networks (and presumably thalamocortical circuits) are expanded in humans and might be particularly vulnerable to dysregulation implicated in mental illness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Shulman, G. L. et al. Common blood flow changes across visual tasks: II: decreases in cerebral cortex. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 9, 648–663 (1997). This study is an influential meta-analysis that revealed a network that is consistently suppressed during externally oriented tasks, which would later be called the default network. - PubMed
    1. Mazoyer, B. et al. Cortical networks for working memory and executive functions sustain the conscious resting state in man. Brain Res. Bull. 54, 287–298 (2001). - PubMed
    1. Raichle, M. E. et al. A default mode of brain function. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 676–682 (2001). - PubMed
    1. Raichle, M. E. The brain’s default mode network. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 38, 433–447 (2015). - PubMed
    1. Buckner, R. L. The serendipitous discovery of the brain’s default network. Neuroimage 62, 1137–1145 (2012). - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources