White matter correlates of creative cognition in a normal cohort

Wertz, Christopher J.; Chohan, Muhammad Omar; Ramey, Shannen; Flores, Ranee A.; Jung, Rex E.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116293

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Concerning the connectivity between ECN and motor regions, the elevated white matter fiber anisotropy of these regional crossings in advanced jazz improvisers may underline the increased performance and activity during creative cognition, working memory tasks, practice, and training [26,36,37]. Further, the enhanced frontal-motor fiber pathways characterized by higher NQA may be due to these behaviors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Enhanced White Matter Fiber Tracts in Advanced Jazz Improvisers

2021

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Human cognition and behavior arise from neuronal interactions over brain structural networks. These neuronal interactions cause changes in structural networks over time. How a creative activity such as musical improvisation performance changes the brain structure is largely unknown. In this diffusion magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the brain’s white matter fiber properties in previously identified functional networks and compared the findings between advanced jazz improvisers and non-musicians. We found that, for advanced improvisers compared with non-musicians, the normalized quantitative anisotropy (NQA) is elevated in the lateral prefrontal areas and supplementary motor area, and the underlying white matter fiber tracts connecting these areas. This enhancement of the diffusion anisotropy along the fiber pathway connecting the lateral prefrontal and supplementary motor is consistent with the functional networks during musical improvisation tasks performed by expert jazz improvisers. These findings together suggest that experts’ creative skill is associated with the task-relevant, long-timescale brain structural network changes, in support of related cognitive underpinnings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Enhanced White Matter Fiber Tracts in Advanced Jazz Improvisers

2021

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“…The RAT problem-solving process includes two stages: idea production (divergent thinking) and idea assessment (convergent thinking) (Smith et al, 2013 ). Divergent thinking is associated with the ability of individuals to fluently produce novel ideas of different types, which involve the brain activity of the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, caudate, and posterior cingulate cortex (Benedek et al, 2014a , b , 2016 ; Cousijn et al, 2014 ; Yoruk and Runco, 2014 ; Jauk et al, 2015 ; Wu C.-L. et al, 2016 ; Kleibeuker et al, 2017 ; Sunavsky and Poppenk, 2020 ; Wertz et al, 2020 ). On the contrary, convergent thinking is associated with the ability to categorize and collate produced ideas and evaluate the feasibility and validity of the ideas, which facilitates finding the most appropriate answer.…”

Section: Research Findings Of Remote Association and Brainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In conclusion, diverse types of creative problem-solving are associated with the activity of different brain regions (Wu et al, 2020 ), such as the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and caudate (Jauk et al, 2015 ; Shen et al, 2018 ; Wu et al, 2019 ; Wertz et al, 2020 ). These findings suggest that brain activity can reflect the performance of creative thinking.…”

Section: Research Findings Of Remote Association and Brainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To summarize, the pre-frontal and parietal lobes are associated with remote associations (Bendetowicz et al, 2017 , 2018 ). The following brain regions have been found to be associated with divergent thinking: frontal lobe, temporal lobe, caudate, and posterior cingulate cortex (Benedek et al, 2014a , b , 2016 ; Cousijn et al, 2014 ; Jauk et al, 2015 ; Wertz et al, 2020 ). In addition, the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, precuneus, and amygdala are all associated with convergent thinking (Shen et al, 2018 ; Wu et al, 2019 ) and play different roles in remote association.…”

Section: This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visual-Spatial and Verbal Remote Association: An fMRI Study

Chen

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Although idea connections at verbal and conceptual levels have been explored by remote associates tests, the visual-spatial level is much less researched. This study investigated the visual-spatial ability via Chinese Radical Remote Associates Test (CRRAT), wherein respondents consider the positions of the stimulus and target Chinese radicals. Chinese Compound Remote Associates Test (CCRAT) questions also feature stimuli of a single Chinese character; therefore, it was adopted for comparison to distinguish the roles played by verbal and visual-spatial associations in a remote associative process. Thirty-six adults responded to CRRAT and CCRAT; their brain activities were analyzed. Upon excluding the influence of age, verbal comprehension, and working memory, it was found that the caudate, posterior cingulate cortex, postcentral gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus were activated when the respondents answered CCRAT, but only the caudate showed significant activation when they answered CRRAT. The Chinese radical remote association minus the Chinese compound remote association showed that the middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and precuneus demonstrated significant activation. Therefore, this study demonstrated differences in brain mechanisms between visual-spatial and verbal remote associations.

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“…The AUT has been strongly linked with the DMN in both functional-connectivity analyses (Beaty et al, 2018(Beaty et al, , 2015(Beaty et al, , 2014 and structural analyses of DT Kühn et al, 2014;Wertz et al, 2020), although far less so in standard functional-activation studies. While neither of the two previous DT meta-analyses reported DMN components in their results (Cogdell-Brooke et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2015), we observed a PCC cluster in the AUT analysis in left BA 23/31 close to where Beaty et al (2015) reported their most extensive cluster in a multivoxel pattern analysis of the AUT.…”

Section: Divergent Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The neural basis of creative production: A cross-modal ALE meta-analysis

Brown

Kim

2021

Preprint

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One of the central questions about the cognitive neuroscience of creativity is the extent to which creativity depends on either domain-specific or domain-general mechanisms. To address this question, we carried out two parallel activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses of creativity: 1) a motoric analysis that combined studies across five domains of creative production (verbalizing, music, movement, writing, and drawing), and 2) an analysis of the Alternate Uses divergent-thinking task. All experiments contained a contrast between a creative task and a matched non-creative or less-creative task that controlled for the sensorimotor demands of task performance. The activation profiles of the two meta-analyses were non-overlapping, but both pointed to a domain-specific interpretation in which creative production is, at least in part, an enhancement of sensorimotor brain areas involved in non-creative production. The most concordant areas of activation in the motoric meta-analysis were high-level motor areas such as the pre-supplementary motor area and inferior frontal gyrus that interface motor planning and executive control, suggesting a means of uniting domain-specificity and -generality in creative production.

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White matter correlates of creative cognition in a normal cohort

Cited by 16 publications

References 28 publications

Enhanced White Matter Fiber Tracts in Advanced Jazz Improvisers

Enhanced White Matter Fiber Tracts in Advanced Jazz Improvisers

Visual-Spatial and Verbal Remote Association: An fMRI Study

The neural basis of creative production: A cross-modal ALE meta-analysis

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