You can take a rest, but is it possible to rest your brain? Consider when you’re zoning out on the couch — is your mind inactive too?
All indications are the answer is no, your brain is still very much engaged. Through about 20 years of research, scientists have found what they’re calling a default mode network, a group of brain areas that appear unrelated, yet are active when you aren’t.
Why is this significant? It gives more clues to how our brains really function, especially when we aren’t concentrating on a task. Much of past brain research has focused on analyzing regions; this provides a reason to investigate brain networks.
There is so much about our gray matter that we still don’t understand. This gives us another data point that will hopefully lead to a real breakthrough.
For the complete story, see “This Is What Your Brain Does When You’re Not Doing Anything” by Nora Bradford at https://www.wired.com/story/what-your-brain-is-doing-when-youre-not-doing-anything/?