The Default Mode Network (DMN) consists of several different separate regions of the brain. The DMN is a resting state network and is most active when the person is relaxed, awake and not task oriented. It is considered a network responsible for introspection, creativity and self-identity. The Fronto-Insular Network (FIN) is another resting network that is involved in salience, the ability to prioritize stimuli. The FIN salience network focuses the brain on what it determines is most important. The DMN and the FIN influence each other with slow, rhythmic electrical waves, the brain's own wireless network. The optimal rhythm between these networks is 1 cycle ever 10 seconds. When pain disrupts the FIN and the anterior DMN, it changes that electrical rhythm to 1 cycle every 4.5 seconds and knocks it out of synch with the posterior DMN. When pain speeds up the electrical rhythm of the posterior DMN, the entire DMN is disrupted and pain becomes the most salient signal and takes over the person's sense of who they are. The rhythmic disruption is self-perpetuating, sustaining pain perception, which no longer requires any stimulus from the body to maintain itself.
