Zoning Out

Zoning out, daydreaming may play key role in mental well-being.
The Los Angeles Times (8/30) reports, "Some scientists wonder whether unstructured mental time -- time to zone out and daydream -- might also play a key role in our mental well-being." Researchers now studying the brain's "default mode network" say that understanding it "may do more than lend respectability to the universal practice of zoning out: It may one day help diagnose and treat psychiatric conditions as diverse as Alzheimer's disease, autism, depression, and schizophrenia." Notably, brain scan studies have revealed that "the brain parts constituting the default mode network are uniquely vulnerable to the tangles, plaques and metabolic disturbances of Alzheimer's disease," indicating that default mode network is integral to people's sense of self.
Brain's default mode network may work differently in people with psychiatric disorders. In a related story, the Los Angeles Times (8/30, Healy) reports, "A series of studies published in recent years suggests that in people with depression, autism, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder, the default mode network, that curious pattern of brain activity that ramps up when we daydream, works differently than it does in healthy control subjects." Interestingly, "in each condition, the malfunctions look slightly different, holding out the prospect of better psychiatric diagnoses down the line." For example, in people who are depressed, fMRI studies have "found the default mode network to be 'hot-wired' to brain regions that process emotions or help focus attention on demanding mental tasks and that connections over-fire or fire unreliably."