Exploring the neural correlates of visual creativity

Abstract

Although creativity has been called the most important of all human resources, its neuralbasis is still unclear. In the current study, we used fMRI tomeasure neural activity in participants solving a visuospatial creativity problem that involves divergent thinking and has beenconsidered a canonicalright hemisphere task. As hypothesized, both the visual creativity task and the control task as compared to rest activated a variety of areas including theposterior parietal cortex bilaterally and motor regions, which are known to be involved in visuospatial rotation of objects. However, directly comparing the two tasks indicated that the creative taskmore strongly activated left hemisphere regions including the posterior parietal cortex, the premotorcortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial PFC. These results demonrate that even in a task that is specialized to the right hemisphere, robust parallel activity in the left hemisphere supports creative processing. Furthermore, the results support the notion that highermotor planning may be a general component of creative improvisation and that suhgoal-directed planning of novel solutions may be organized top-down by the left DLPFC and by working memory processing in the medial prefrontal cortex.© The Author (2012). Published by Oxford University Press.