The Computational Self
Abstract: Your brain is never at rest. Shifting patterns of activity course through your brain at night as you review the events of the day and plan the next day before falling asleep. Rumination is a reflection of the Self that is not directly driven by sensory stimuli. When we record from single neurons in the brain, we discover that even in the absence of sensory stimulation, neurons are continuously active. This is called maintained, or spontaneous, activity, and although it is well documented, it has not been as well studied. Most experiments are designed to look for signals that are elicited by sensory stimuli above the background, without mentioning whether the background has changed too, as it often does. New methods have been developed recently that allow us to study the brain's spontaneous activity and to explore how it might provide clues to the origin and nature of the Self.