#brain networks

Study Shows Details of Brain Networks in Autism

A brain network connects different brain regions, sending signals across pathways for specific functions, such as vision or attention.

Individual Insight into Brain Networks

Harvard scientists have gained new insights into how the brain networks important for thought and remembering are organized in individual people, bringing the notion of using brain scans to help personalize medical treatments one step closer to reality.

Researchers Identify Brain Network Organization Changes

Network organization changes influence improvements in executive function among adolescents and young adults.

The first decision in my creative process is deciding on where, which physical location, I'm gonna start my work on a project.

When I make the choice to start anywhere but my workstation, I'm cueing my brain that we're not gonna just dive right in. I'm actively putting that off in order to use different parts of my brain to engage the script. To process. To imagine. To think. To iterate.

Among other things, those activities allow me to consider the meaning, subtext, challenges, and straight up opportunities baked into the written word. All of which informs my eventual process.

You see, while both hemispheres of the human brain can process everything coming in, it's actually networks in the brain that do the heavy lifting.

Which networks?

Well, that depends.

There's a network that kicks in when we indulge memories, when we daydream, when we visualize the future.

There's a network that kicks in when we simply focus our attention.

There's a network that activates for executive function, goal-oriented, cognitively demanding tasks, rule-based problem solving, maintaining and manipulating information in working memory, and making decisions in the context of goal-directed behavior.

And so on.

Here's the thing, though: the networks don't work simultaneously. When one is activated the others are de-activated. 

So the daydreaming network deactivates as soon as we focus our attention, as soon as we start problem solving.

With me so far? 

Our ability for diffuse, non-directed thinking, is turned off as soon as we focus our thinking. And for me... the gold is found where my mind wanders.

Now, the way I know I'm in this mode of thinking is that it's incredibly bouncy and magnetic at the same time. Divergent and convergent. It really does wander. Ideas beget ideas beget further ideas. They branch. They connect. They multiply. 

It's a very open circuit state of mind. And there's no mistaking it. 

On the other hand, when I'm focused or problem solving, it's a contained experience. It's linear. Step by step. Beginning to end.

Logical in the extreme.

So when I say the physical space in which I choose to begin my creative work has a huge influence on my work... but that choice only facilitates, it doesn't guarantee the outcome...

What I mean is that how I choose to engage the script is equally important because it's fully possible for me to engage the script as if I were at my workstation, editing in Premiere. Thinking about what kind of shot would I put here? What kind of music would be most effective there?

I can very much do a paper edit of a show in my head.

And I have.

It's another way to edit among many ways.

But the best way for me is to intellectually and emotionally meet the script on its own terms. To divine meaning. To interpret intention. To perceive all the layers baked into the words, intentionally and unintentionally. To learn where the moments are, the ones I've gotta nail.

To internalize all of that. Because when I do...

Something in my brain starts working on the project.

On.

Its.

Own.

I'll tell you the story of when I first became aware of the black box in my head...

The Space-Time Fabric of Brain Networks

Researchers have discovered how neuronal networks are able to generate activity sequences for meaningful behavior

Neuroscientists at the Bernstein Center Freiburg (BCF) of the University of Freiburg and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have decoded a significant process in the brain that in part contributes to the behavior of living beings. “One of the basic requirements for…