However identifying brain correlates of a situation-independent personality structure would require evidence of a stable default mode of brain functioning associated with the different personality dimensions.
Raichle proposed that this pattern reflects a default mode of brain function and a functionally relevant physiological baseline (Raichle, 2001).
They are considered to reflect a default mode of brain function [4] and to constitute a default-mode network (DMN) [5].
Raichle et al., 2001 [8] used quantitative positron emission tomography (PET) to demonstrate the existence of such a baseline state of human brain function that is remarkably uniform in the awake resting state and they used the term baseline default mode of brain function to describe activity in the regions involved.
In this regard, the accumulating evidence for the existence of a default mode of brain function has derived from the observation of intrinsic activity in a neural architecture encompassing regions of the MPFC, PCC and medial precuneus [15], whose interaction would be intimately involved in self-awareness and conscious experience [16] [18].
Such a "default mode of brain function" [8], [9] has in fact been implicated in the spontaneous stream of thoughts, episodic memories, and conceptual processing that normally occurs in the absence of goal-directed activity [10], [11], [12], [13], and which appears to be integral to our sense of self [14], [15], [16], [17].
These results extend Raichle et al. (2001) view of the resting state as a default mode of brain function, suggesting an adaptive anticipatory uncoupling between blood flow and glucose metabolism.
Activity in these regions also decreases during a wide range of cognitive tasks (Mazoyer et al., 2001; Raichle et al., 2001) and this observation of "task-independent deactivation" has led to the proposal that activity in these structures serves as a "default mode" of brain function that predominates whenever subjects are awake, but not performing any explicit task (Raichle et al., 2001).
Most functional neuroimaging studies have focused on identifying neural networks activated by specific tasks (Brinkley and Rosse 2002; Friston et al. 2002) but Raichle et al. (2001) have pointed out the significance of the resting state as a "default mode of brain function".
Q -- But the default mode of any democracy is peace.
