bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 3, 2026
Sébastien Czajko, Jelle Zorn, Oussama Abdoun et al.
preprint
Nonduality is a foundational but conceptually elusive notion across several contemplative traditions. Nondual traditions challenge the assumption that a subject-object structure characteristic of ordinary experience is an intrinsic feature of conscious awareness. However, little remains known about the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with such experiential state. Here, we investigated how...
Preprints.org
July 2, 2026
Nidhi Parihar, Manish Kumar Verma
preprint
The default mode network (DMN)—positioned on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus, and the angular gyrus, beside medial temporal and lateral temporal aids—was originally distinguished by its high resting activity and its deactivation during externally focused tasks. Although emotion has traditionally been associated with subcortical and limbic...
Linguistic Frontiers
July 1, 2026
Luigi Lobaccaro
Abstract: The Default Mode Network (DMN) is reshaping cognitive neuroscience, offering fresh insights into high-level cognitive processes and the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences. This article explores how neuroscientific research on the DMN can inform a neurosemiotic approach. It builds on Duarte’s recent proposal (2020; 2022) to associate the activities of this...
Alzheimer's Disease - Diagnostics, Pathogenesis, and Treatment [Working Title]
July 1, 2026
Denis Larrivee
While most theories regarding Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis adopt a “neurocentric” perspective, increasing evidence suggests that nonneuronal cells may be a primary site of pathogenesis in early stage AD. Several years prior to the appearance of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), functional connectivity (FC) changes can be observed in the human cingulate cortex, a...
Comprehensive Psychiatry
July 1, 2026
Nagara Takao, Naoya Oishi, Qi Dai et al.
Problematic Use of the Internet (PUI) has been associated with functional alterations in the default mode network (DMN), which contains critical hubs in the entire brain network. Previous studies have predicted that hub disruption leads to widespread network alterations; however, whether DMN functional connectivity mediates the relationship between PUI and global network topology remains...
Neuroimage
July 1, 2026
Yan Zhang, Xiarong Li, Zhenlan Jin et al.
Persistent debate surrounds whether the frontal lobe supports the emergence or reporting of consciousness, raising the hypothesis that distinct frontal subregions may support these processes. We addressed this by combining electroencephalography (EEG) with eye-tracking in Report and No-Report paradigms. Eye-movement features distinguished conscious and unconscious trials in the no-report task....
Brain Topography
June 26, 2026
Poppy L A Schoenberg, Reza M Zargar, Sevket Hepark
Research suggests that ADHD is characterized by dominant Default-Mode Network (DMN) and diminished Task Positive Network (TPN) activity, which has been linked to detrimentally affecting attention and executive task-dependent functioning. Interventions targeting this DMN-TPN interplay may be clinically important in ameliorating ADHD symptoms. This hypothesis was explored using frequency and...
iScience
June 19, 2026
Chuang Liang, Wenhao Jiang, Jiayu Chen et al.
Hemodialysis (HD) is the predominant treatment for end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Despite the efficacy of HD, the neurobiological underpinnings underlying high-risk complications remain unclear. In this study, using unsupervised fusion of functional and structural MRI, we identified a longitudinally altered default mode network (DMN)-insula pattern in ESRD receiving HD over 1-year follow-up (n...
Brain Topography
June 17, 2026
Emilio Sanz-Morales, Helena Melero
The Default Mode Network was a key finding for cognitive neuroscience, but being the result of a data-driven analysis of resting-state fMRI data, its psychological and clinical implications have been difficult to elucidate. This is because in the resting-state paradigm we cannot directly correlate an observable specific task with specific brain connectivity patterns, and therefore inferences...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
June 16, 2026
Isaac R Christian, Samuel A Nastase
Humans spend considerable time contemplating the minds of others. But this ability is not limited to external agents-we also turn the lens for reading minds inward, reflecting on our own thoughts, emotions, and sense of self. Some processes involved in reasoning about minds may rely on shared mechanisms, while others may be specific to the agent under consideration. We developed a paradigm...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
June 16, 2026
Adam R Pines, Xue Zhang, John Kochalka et al.
Psychedelic drugs are poised to become mainstream treatments, yet we lack a circuit-level account of how they reshape brain activity. Emerging evidence suggests that multiple psychedelic compounds modulate activity in the brain's default mode network (DMN), often interpreted as either increased or decreased bottom-up hierarchical processing. Most imaging studies, however, quantify activity as...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
June 16, 2026
Paulina Clara Dagnino, Irene Acero-Pousa, Gorka Zamora-López et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract In recent decades, the psychedelic psilocybin has been studied as a potential treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), offering an alternative to traditional antidepressants. However, the brain changes underlying the clinical effects of different interventions remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of psilocybin and a conventional antidepressant, escitalopram, from the...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 15, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
preprint
We examine the claim that a minimal-conceptual, “bare” awareness underlies ordinary experience, and whether this pre-conceptual awareness (PCA, or minimal-dual awareness) should be understood primarily as an earlier, biologically rooted developmental baseline, or as a disclosure of a deeper ontological reality. The Retrieval hypothesis treats PCA as a cognitive–neural default mode that can be...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
June 12, 2026
Nikola Jajcay, Čestmír Vejmola, Jakub Korčák et al.
preprint
Abstract Psilocybin and other serotonergic psychedelics show therapeutic promise for psychiatric disorders, yet objective neural correlates linking the acute psychedelic state to persisting psychological outcomes remain limited. Electroencephalography (EEG) microstate analysis characterizes the rapid spatiotemporal organization of large-scale brain activity, offering a millisecond-resolution...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
June 9, 2026
Grace Qiyuan Miao, Ian J. Lieberman, Ashley L. Binnquist et al.
Little is known about the neurocognitive underpinnings of forming social connections. In this study, we tested whether default mode network (DMN) inter-brain synchrony (which prior work has linked to interpersonal alignment, or 'seeing eye-to-eye') predicts feelings of connection during conversations. Seventy pairs of strangers engaged in shallow or deep conversations while brain activity was...
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
June 4, 2026
Elena Bondi, Flavia Carbone, Giandomenico Schiena et al.
Introduction: Affective disorders (ADs) are characterized by profound emotional processing deficits involving disrupted neural network activity and connectivity, particularly within the default mode network and fronto-temporal circuits, with abnormalities in theta and alpha oscillatory patterns. While current treatments primarily target mood symptoms, emotional processing impairments often...
Biological Psychology
June 3, 2026
Hongkeun Kim
Functional neuroimaging studies consistently show that episodic recollection engages the default mode network (DMN), yet the extent to which this engagement varies with the representational content of retrieved information remains unclear. The present meta-analysis examined whether recollection of verbal and visual materials differentially recruits the DMN. Twenty-four verbal and 19 visual...
Cognitive Semiotics
June 2, 2026
Francesco Verde
Abstract Investigating the semantic specificity of inner speech means addressing one of the most elusive and underexplored sides of language studies: the irreducible mark of subjectivity, long marginalised in 19th- and 20th-century comparative and structuralist approaches as a non-formalisable residue of analysis (Bergounioux. 2010. Les trois sources de la théorie de l’endophasie: phonologie,...
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
June 1, 2026
David V Smith, Dominic S. Fareri, Ekaterina Dobryakova
The default mode network (DMN) has been central to cognitive neuroscience research for over two decades, yet understanding of its contribution to decision-making remains incomplete. This review synthesizes recent evidence demonstrating that the DMN directly supports subjective valuation and value-based decision-making. Anatomically and functionally, core DMN regions-including the ventromedial...
Psychodynamic psychiatry
June 1, 2026
Richard Brockman
When Freud invented/discovered psychoanalysis, he devised not just a theory of mind but also a tool that enabled him to observe the "mind." And with the tool of psychoanalysis, he was able to observe the workings of the default mode network (DMN) some hundred years before anyone knew of its existence. Since then, various operations of the DMN have been identified. One is the integration of...