Summary: Researchers have identified how the brain’s default mode network (DMN) collaborates with other regions to produce creative thoughts. Using advanced brain imaging techniques, they tracked brain activity in real time during creative tasks.
This study reveals that the DMN initiates creative ideas, which are then evaluated by other brain regions. Understanding this process could lead to interventions that enhance creativity and facilitate mental health treatments.
Highlights:
- DMN role: The default mode network initiates creative ideas.
- Real-time tracking: Advanced imaging tracked brain activity during creative tasks.
- Impact on mental health: These findings could lead to treatments for disorders affecting the DMN.
Source: University of Utah
Have you ever had the solution to a difficult problem while you were thinking about something completely different? Creative thinking is a characteristic of humanity, but it is an ephemeral, almost paradoxical ability that strikes unexpectedly when you are not looking for it.
The neurological source of creativity (what happens in our brains when we think outside the box) is equally elusive.
But now, a research team led by a University of Utah researcher and based at Baylor College of Medicine has used a precise brain imaging method to reveal how different parts of the brain work together to produce creative thought.
Their findings published in BRAIN June 18th.
The new findings could ultimately contribute to interventions that boost creative thinking or help people with mental illnesses that disrupt these brain regions.
Outside the bo
Higher cognitive processes like creativity are particularly difficult to study. “Unlike motor function or vision, they don’t depend on a specific location in the brain,” says Ben Shofty, MD, assistant professor of neurosurgery at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine and the study’s senior author. “There’s no such thing as a creativity cortex.”
There is, however, evidence that creativity is a distinct brain function. Localized brain damage caused by a stroke can lead to changes in creative ability, both positive and negative. This finding suggests that it is possible to reduce the neurological basis of creativity.
Shofty suspected that creative thinking might rely heavily on parts of the brain that are also activated during meditation, daydreaming, and other types of inward-focused thinking.
This network of brain cells is the default mode network (DMN), so called because it is associated with the “default” thought patterns that occur in the absence of specific mental tasks.
“Unlike most brain functions, this one is not directed toward a specific goal,” Shofty says. “It’s a network that’s constantly operating and maintaining our spontaneous stream of consciousness.”
The DMN is spread across many scattered regions of the brain, making it harder to track its activity in real time. The researchers had to use an advanced method of imaging brain activity to understand what the network was doing at each moment during creative thinking.
In a commonly used strategy to localize seizures in patients with severe epilepsy, tiny electrodes are implanted in the brain to precisely track electrical activity in multiple brain regions.
The study participants were already undergoing this type of seizure monitoring, which allowed the research team to use the electrodes to measure brain activity during creative thinking. This provided a much more detailed picture of the neural underpinnings of creativity than researchers had been able to obtain until now.
“We could see what happens in the first milliseconds of the attempt at creative thinking,” Shofty said.
Two steps towards originality
The researchers observed that during a creative thinking task in which participants were asked to list new uses for an everyday object, such as a chair or a cup, the DMN lit up with activity first.
Then its activity synchronizes with that of other brain regions, including those involved in complex problem solving and decision making. Shofty thinks this means that creative ideas originate in the DMN before being evaluated by other regions.
In addition, the researchers were able to show that certain parts of the network are specifically needed for creative thinking. When the researchers used the electrodes to temporarily dampen activity in certain regions of the DMN, participants thought of less creative uses for the items they saw. Their other brain functions, such as mind wandering, remained perfectly normal.
Eleonora Bartoli, PhD, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine and co-first author of the paper, says the finding shows that creativity is not just associated with the network, but fundamentally depends on it.
“We went beyond correlational evidence by using direct brain stimulation,” she says. “Our results highlight the causal role of the DMN in creative thinking.”
The network’s activity is altered in several disorders, such as ruminative depression, in which the DMN is more active than normal, which may be related to an increased focus on negative, inwardly directed thoughts. Shofty says a better understanding of how the network normally functions could lead to better treatments for people with these disorders.
By characterizing the brain regions involved in creative thinking, Shofty ultimately hopes to inspire interventions that can help boost creativity. “Ultimately, the goal would be to understand what’s happening to the network so that we can potentially nudge it to be more creative.”
Funding: This research was funded by the McNair Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health (grant number R01-MH127006).
This work is the result of a collaboration between researchers at University of Utah Health, Baylor College of Medicine and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
About this news on creativity and neuroscience research
Author: Sophie Friesen
Source: University of Utah
Contact: Sophia Friesen – University of Utah
Picture: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Free access.
“Electrophysiological dynamics of the default mode network and its causal role in creative thinking” by Ben Shofty et al. Brain
Abstract
Electrophysiological dynamics of the default mode network and causal role in creative thinking
The default mode network (DMN) is a widely distributed intrinsic brain network that is thought to play a crucial role in internally directed cognition.
The present study uses stereoelectroencephalography in 13 human patients, obtaining high-resolution neural recordings in several canonical regions of the DMN during two processes associated with creative thinking: spontaneous thinking and divergent thinking. We investigate these two higher cognitive functions associated with the DMN through mind wandering and alternative use tasks, respectively.
Our results reveal a recruitment of the DMN during both tasks, as well as a task-specific dissociation in spatiotemporal response dynamics. Compared to the frontoparietal network, DMN activity was characterized by a stronger increase in gamma band power (30-70 Hz) coupled with a weaker theta band power (4-8 Hz). The activity difference between the two networks was particularly strong during the mind-wandering task.
Within the DMN, we found that tasks exhibited different dynamics, with the alternative uses task engaging the DMN more during the initial phase of the task, and mind wandering during the later phase. Gamma power changes were primarily mediated by lateral DMN sites, while theta power exhibited task-specific effects.
During the alternative use task, theta changes did not show spatial differences within the DMN, while mind wandering was associated with early lateral and late dorsomedial DMN engagement.
Moreover, causal manipulations of DMN regions using direct cortical stimulation preferentially decreased response originality in the alternative uses task, without affecting fluency or mind wandering.
Our results suggest that DMN activity is flexibly modulated depending on specific cognitive processes and support its causal role in divergent thinking.
These findings shed light on the neural constructs that support different forms of cognition and provide causal evidence for the role of the DMN in generating novel connections between concepts.