"Rumination activates the default mode network (DMN) - the brain's self-referential processing system. This is the neural circuitry that fires when you're thinking about yourself in relation to others: your identity, your social standing, your mistakes. It's the brain asking, over and over, What does this say about me?"
"The DMN was designed to help you learn from social experience. It's supposed to run a quick debrief and then quiet down. But in people who ruminate, it doesn't quiet down. It gets louder. The prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for executive control, for saying enough, let's move on - fails to put the brakes on."
Rumination is a sticky, looping form of mental replay where people reconstruct social interactions word-by-word, editing their responses and searching for hidden meanings. Neuroscience research shows rumination activates the default mode network (DMN), the brain's self-referential processing system that evaluates identity, social standing, and mistakes. While the DMN evolved to help learn from social experiences through brief debriefing, it malfunctions in people who ruminate—it intensifies rather than quiets down. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive control and decision-making, fails to interrupt this loop. Social interactions specifically trigger rumination more than mundane tasks, suggesting the brain prioritizes analyzing social experiences over other information.
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