The Neuroscience of Creativity

Over the course of decades, we have witnessed so many creative people bring things unto the world. For example Albert Einstein helped us explore the world we know today like space, time, Energy. Also Tim-burners lee we know today  and more people with creative minds have shaped the world we know today. Creativity is such a big thing in humans yet we don't know how it is formed  and the test for this today is based on different thinking and doesn't really explain the neural process for how creativity sparks in people's minds. Today we shall explore the process and the mechanisms that go in people's mind for creativity. Thus if we enhance these certain mechanisms and part of the brain responsible for creativity we can  enhance creativity in humans.

The DMN system and the ECN system

There are two main systems that work together when forming creativity and help people put out creative ideas that can maybe help them or change the world. They are called the DMN- Default Mode network and the ECN-Executive control network.  For example, In a set of remote studies there was reported a reaction between DMN and the ECN (Roger E Beaty  et al). The DMN is the midline where post inferior networks are involved in processes like mid wandering, episode and mental stimulation(Roger E Beaty et al  ). Conversely the ECN is characterized by lateral prefrontal and anterior inferior parietal regions that support cognitive control such as response inhibition, goal maintenance, and attention control(Roger E Beaty   et al). Together the DMN and Ecn work together during a creative task performance reflecting goal directed and self cognition. The admin is involved in idea generation; for example when you're in the shower or taking a walk outside the brain generates many creative ideas;that is the dman network at play. While you have all of those thoughts in the DMN process the ECN comes and evaluates which of those thoughts you actually need and will help you towards your goal. So in sum the Demon acts as the messy artist who just comes up with many creative ideas while the EMN acts as the reasonable architect and tells it what they actually need. Without the DMN we couldn't create many different creative ideas but without the EMN we couldn't. The creative ideas will just stay messy thoughts and couldn't become reality because it was never sorted out. Together these both create a human creative journey.

Pre inhibition response and Convergent and Divergent Thinking

There are two types of thinking when it comes to creativity. There are two types of thinking: convergent and divergent. Convergent thinking is the thinking of one practical solution or answers when it comes to plomblem/question. Then divergent thinking is thinking of many solutions to a problem or solution and being more creative with it. In a crime study they gave participants a verb and it was between high constraints and low constraints. The high constraints had already studied the verb before the study((Roger E Beaty et al). For example if the word was ball they already studied/looked at it and maybe correlated with the word bounce. While the low constraint participants had not. The study found that the low constraints had more creative ways to describe the word because they hadn't studied the word before and had more divergent thinking. The high constraints did not and they only thought of practical and obvious words that can describe the word: they lacked the ability to suppress inhibition. Inhibition is the ability to stop dominating response tendencies. For example playing a game of simon says if the person simon says touch your toes you touch them but then if they say “ touch your toes” you will more than likely touch your toes because it's almost like the dominated/automatic response. So by the high constraints participants were already studying that verb-like if it was ball and they knew bounce their mound would only go to the word bounce- they had more convergent thinking( limited ideas) and lacked the creativity of possible new words of that verb unlike the low constraints. Also it was proven that the DMN and ECN were working more harder in the high constraints mind because it tried to stop those people's mind from going to a dominant response and think more creatively.

Internally focused attention

In order for most to have that creativity you have to be focused on your thoughts  and have internally focused attention to really expand the creativity.  You have to be able to block the outside world and be in your world with your thoughts, which is what daydreaming is and why a lot of the creativity sparks in daydreaming-so it is very important to be able to focus your attention internally. For example there was a study done  where they had participants have external stimuli during the whole trial and other participants during a tria(Roger E Beaty et al  )l. This study was really a matter of convergent vs divergent thinking because the people who were looking at the external and had convergent ( Practical) thinking the whole the ones who saw it for a split second had divergent thinking. Also, in that study it also proved the IPS the exterior of the ECN was the IPL  and the visual cortex working hard together so it could block out everything that you see on the outside world and focus all your attention on those creative thoughts(Roger E Beaty et al )-creative cognition also needs internally focused attention. Also,rearward ECN regions can interact with sensory cortices to hinder  external input and shield internal thought processes during idea generation  prepotent-response inhibition of semantic information. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, finding how creativity works in the brain is truly immaculate. To have an idea of how creativity sparks in the brains of humans is interesting and how it made our world today. 

The research that has been done on the neuroscience of creativity has truly advanced and provides specific mechanisms and systems that can show how humans can be so creative like Shakespeare or Einstein. In addition, there are other networks that help such as the salience network that help the brains switch between brainstorming and focused thinking . While attention networks help maintain concentration during creative tasks. However, the interaction between the DMN and Ecn is considered a central component of creativity. Although scientists have discovered different systems, mechanisms and brain parts that are responsible for creativity flow and expansion, many questions are still unanswered like how creativity differs in individuals like what other specific brain systems are there. Also whether creativity can strengthen through educational creativity. In order to truly master the research of the neuroscience of creativity they should try experimenting how divergent thinking actually makes that creativity into something beautiful like a business or beautifully play and really go deeper in the connectedness of it all. In summary, Creativity is a beautiful ability that people have  and it is not all singled out in one brain region but it is molded into it is molded into its true form through many different networks. The interaction between the Default Mode Network and the Executive control network allows humans to generate, evaluate, and refine ideas, making creativity one of the brain's most remarkable abilities.

Citations

Beaty, R. E., Benedek, M., Kaufman, S. B., & Silvia, P. J. (2015). Default and Executive Network Coupling Supports Creative Idea Production. Scientific reports, 5, 10964. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep10964 

Beaty, R. E., Seli, P., & Schacter, D. L. (2019). Network Neuroscience of Creative Cognition: Mapping Cognitive Mechanisms and Individual Differences in the Creative Brain. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 27, 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.08.013