The Neural Mechanism Underlying Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Creativity

Abstract

Creativity is related to both cognition and emotion, which are the two major mental processes, interacting with each other to form psychological processes. Emotion is the major driving force of almost all creativities, sometimes in an unconscious way. Even though there are many studies concerning the relationship between creativity and cognition, there are few studies about the neural mechanisms of the emotional effects on creativity. Here, we introduce a novel model to explain the relationship between emotions and creativities: Three Primary Color model, which proposes that there are four major basic emotions; these basic emotions are subsided by three monoamines, just like the three primary colors: dopamine-joy, norepinephrine-stress (fear and anger), and serotonin-punishment. Interestingly, these three neuromodulators play similar roles in creativity, whose core features are value and novelty (surprise), like the characteristics of the core features of basic emotions (hedonic value and arousal value). Dysfunctions of these neuromodulators may be the reasons for both psychopathology and creativity, in that they can change the thinking styles such as novelty seeking behavior, hyper-connectivity of brain areas, and/or cognitive disinhibition to induce both creativity and psychopathology. This new model will not only help researchers understand the dynamics of basic emotion elements, it can also bring an entirely new perspective into the relationship between psychopathology and creativity.

An East Meets West Approach to the Understanding of Emotion Dysregulation in Depression: From Perspective to Scientific Evidence

“…The transformation of emotion is based on the productive cycle of the five elements theory. The interaction of elements and organs is as follows: sadness is related to the lung, and joy can oppose it; fear is related to the kidney, and missing can oppose it; anger is related to the liver, and sadness can oppose it; joy is related to the heart, and fear can oppose it; missing is related to the spleen, and anger can oppose it (Giovanni, 1989; Chen, 1990; Gu et al., 2018a,b). Theoretically, emotional changes have two-way functions.…”

“…Depression is characterized by the emotion of sadness and the inability to extract pleasure from positive situations. Previous studies have suggested that patients with depression lack the emotion of anger because of their inability to handle stressful situations (Gu et al., 2016, 2018a). There are many ways for people with depression to regulate their emotions, including coping strategies and motivation (Kring and Werner, 2004; Campbell-Sills et al., 2006).…”

The Relationship between Insecure Attachment to Depression: Mediating Role of Sleep and Cognitive Reappraisal

“…However, there is no efficient treatment for this disease, for the underlying neural mechanism of emotions is unclear [2]. The most widely accepted theory about affective disorders is the monoamine theory, which suggests that monoamines, including norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin (5-HT) are the major reasons for emotion disorders [3], and the first line of treatment for depression also targets these monoamines [4]. However, there are still many controversies about monoamine neurotransmitters affecting the emotion processes, for example, it is well known that 5-HT is a major neurotransmitter that is involved in depression; and sleep is also modulated by 5-HT in raphe nuclei, but how sleep affects depression is not clear.…”

The Mediating Effects of Coping Style on the Effects of Breath Count Mindfulness Training on Depressive Symptoms among International Students in China

“…Many reports have found that mindfulness training can help appease emotional arousal. Mindfulness training is sure to affect the nervous system [ 57 ]. Mindfulness can affect attention, emotion, and self-consciousness; what is the neural mechanism?…”