Default Mode Network : Its Implications in Psychiatry

The brain’s “default mode network” is among the most rapidly growing neuroscientific topics of the new millennium. Since the appointment of its name in the turn of the millenium (Raichle and others 2001), the default network has garnered considerable interest for its high level of resting metabolic activity, which decreases in the face of externally-directed attention (Minoshima and others 1997; Gusnard and Raichle 2001). Though its presence was anticipated by some Neuro-scientists as early as late 1920s, it was a serendipitous discovery by a group of Neuroradiologists working on functional neuro-imaging at Washington University School of Medicine.