Creativity has long been a construct of interest to philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, neuroscientists. Recent efforts have focused on cognitive processes likely to be important to the manifestation of novelty and usefulness within a given social context. One such cognitive processdivergent thinking -is the process by which one extrapolates many possible answers to an initial stimulus or target data set. We sought to link well established measures of divergent thinking and creative achievement (Creative Achievement Questionnaire -CAQ) to cortical thickness in a cohort of young (23.7 ± 4.2 years), healthy subjects. Three independent judges ranked the creative products of each subject using the consensual assessment technique (Amabile, 1982) from which a "composite creativity index" (CCI) was derived. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was obtained at 1.5 Tesla Siemens scanner. Cortical reconstruction and volumetric segmentation were performed with the FreeSurfer image analysis suite. A region within the lingual gyrus was negatively correlated with CCI; the right posterior cingulate correlated positively with the CCI. For the CAQ, lower left lateral orbitofrontal volume correlated with higher creative achievement; higher cortical thickness was related to higher scores on the CAQ in the right angular gyrus. This is the first study to link cortical thickness measures to psychometric measures of creativity. The distribution of brain regions, associated with both divergent thinking and creative achievement, suggests that cognitive control of information flow among brain areas may be critical to understanding creative cognition.
BackgroundNeuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality.MethodsWe used Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to assess white matter abnormalities in seventeen NPSLE patients, sixteen SLE patients without NPSLE, and twenty age- and gender-matched controls.ResultsNPSLE patients differed significantly from SLE and control patients in white matter integrity of the body of the corpus callosum, the left arm of the forceps major and the left anterior corona radiata.ConclusionsSeveral possible mechanisms of white matter injury are explored, including vascular injury, medication effects, and platelet or fibrin macro- or microembolism from Libman-Sacks endocarditis.
A broadly accepted definition of creativity refers to the production of something both novel and useful within a given social context. Studies of patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders and neuroimaging studies of healthy controls have each drawn attention to frontal and temporal lobe contributions to creativity. Based on previous magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy studies demonstrating relationships between cognitive ability and concentrations of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA), a common neurometabolite, we hypothesized that NAA assessed in gray and white matter (from a supraventricular slab) would relate to laboratory measures of creativity. MR imaging and divergent thinking measures were obtained in a cohort of 56 healthy controls. Independent judges ranked the creative products of each participant, from which a "Composite Creativity Index" (CCI) was created. Different patterns of correlations between NAA and CCI were found in higher verbal ability versus lower verbal ability participants, providing neurobiological support for a critical "threshold" regarding the relationship between intelligence and creativity. To our knowledge, this is the first report assessing the relationship between brain chemistry and creative cognition, as measured with divergent thinking, in a cohort comprised exclusively of normal, healthy participants.
Creative cognition emerges from a complex network of interacting brain regions. This study investigated the relationship between the structural organization of the human brain and aspects of creative cognition tapped by divergent thinking tasks. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) was used to obtain fiber tracts from 83 segmented cortical regions. This information was represented as a network and metrics of connectivity organization, including connectivity strength, clustering and communication efficiency were computed, and their relationship to individual levels of creativity was examined. Permutation testing identified significant sex differences in the relationship between global connectivity and creativity as measured by divergent thinking tests. Females demonstrated significant inverse relationships between global connectivity and creative cognition, whereas there were no significant relationships observed in males. Node specific analyses revealed inverse relationships across measures of connectivity, efficiency, clustering and creative cognition in widespread regions in females. Our findings suggest that females involve more regions of the brain in processing to produce novel ideas to solutions, perhaps at the expense of efficiency (greater path lengths). Males, in contrast, exhibited few, relatively weak positive relationships across these measures. Extending recent observations of sex differences in connectome structure, our findings of sexually dimorphic relationships suggest a unique topological organization of connectivity underlying the generation of novel ideas in males and females.
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