Neural efficiency in creative decision-making: A sparse directed subnetwork in soccer experts revealed by fMRI

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Network Science

Background:

• Creative choices require rapid action generation and evaluation under pressure.
• Understanding the neural basis of creative decision-making, specifically whole-brain communication patterns, remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify directed network signatures differentiating creative from obvious action continuations.
• To investigate how these network patterns correlate with creative decision-making skills.

Main Methods:

• Utilized whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to estimate directed effective connectivity in 112 brain regions.
• Analyzed network organization using triad motifs and community structure during a naturalistic soccer decision task.
• Related network findings to Soccer Video Test (SVT) scores.

Main Results:

• Identified 22 directed connections with significant differences between creative (Think) and obvious (Video) conditions.
• Creative continuation (Think) increased network description length and reduced specific motif counts (feedforward-closure, convergent fan-in).
• Higher Soccer Video Test scores correlated with increased convergent fan-in motifs and decreased network description length.

Conclusions:

• Demonstrated directed reweighting of local motifs and mesoscale organization during creative action selection.
• Provides a framework for mechanistic investigation of creative expertise in real-world scenarios.
• Highlights the role of dynamic, directed whole-brain communication in creative decision-making.