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

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Brain Imaging

Background:

• Creative insight is crucial for daily life.
• Neural basis of creative insight explored via fMRI.
• Intrinsic resting-state brain activity linked to creative insight remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate intrinsic resting-state brain activity underlying creative insight.
• Identify brain regions associated with individual differences in creative insight.
• Utilize regional homogeneity (ReHo) in resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI).

Main Methods:

• Employed regional homogeneity (ReHo) as an index in rs-fMRI.
• Measured creative insight using response time (RT) in Chinese character chunk decomposition.
• Analyzed spontaneous brain activity patterns.

Main Results:

• ReHo in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/caudate nucleus (CN) negatively predicted creative insight.
• ReHo in angular gyrus (AG)/superior temporal gyrus (STG)/inferior parietal lobe (IPL) negatively predicted creative insight.
• Spontaneous activity in regions for mental set shifting, attention, association, and emotion is linked to creative insight.

Conclusions:

• Provides new evidence on cognitive processing and neural correlates of creative insight.
• Highlights the role of spontaneous brain activity in creative problem-solving.
• Suggests specific brain regions are key to individual differences in creative insight.