CortexApril 19, 2026Erica Adezati, Melissa Thye, Shubhangi Butta et al.
Narrative comprehension involves creating a mental representation of the events of the story: a "situation model". Maintaining a situation model is thought to be supported by the Default Mode Network (DMN), but recent work suggests that the semantic system, and specifically the ventrolateral anterior temporal lobe (ATL), may play a role in reflecting on and restructuring the situation model via...
The default mode network (DMN) typically deactivates to external tasks, yet supports semantic cognition. It comprises medial temporal (MT), core, and frontotemporal (FT) subsystems, but its functional organization is unclear: the requirement for perceptual coupling versus decoupling, input modality (visual/verbal), type of information (social/spatial), and control demands all potentially affect...
The default mode network (DMN) and semantic network (SN) are two of the most extensively studied systems, and both are increasingly used as clinical biomarkers in neurological studies. There are strong theoretical reasons to assume a relationship between the networks, as well as anatomical evidence that they might rely on overlapping cortical regions, such as the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) or...