Regional Homogeneity Predicts Creative Insight: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Abstract

Creative insight plays an important role in our daily life. Previous studies have investigated the neural correlates of creative insight by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, the intrinsic resting-state brain activity associated with creative insight is still unclear. In the present study, we used regional homogeneity (ReHo) as an index in resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) to identify brain regions involved in individual differences in creative insight, which was compued by the response time (RT) of creative Chinese character chunk decomposition. The findings indicated that ReHo in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/caudate nucleus (CN) and angular gyrus (AG)/superior temporal gyrus (STG)/inferior parietal lobe (IPL) negatively predicted creative insight. Furthermore, these findings suggested that spontaneous brain activity in multiple regions related to breaking and establishing mental sets, goal-directed solutions exploring, shifting attention, forming new associations and emotion experience contributes to creative insight. In conclusion, the present study provides new evidence to further understand the cognitive processing and neural correlates of creative insight.