That Neuroscience Guy - Creativity and the Brain

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Humans accomplish amazing things through creativity. In this week's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss what's going on in your brain while you're being creative, and what we can do to improve that process. 

Hi, my name is Ola Kregolson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. What makes us creative? Like, you know, why do we just come up with ideas to do random things and be able to just do something unique? On today's podcast, I'm going to talk about the neuroscience of creativity. As it turns out, the story behind creativity isn't completely unique, funnily enough. First of all, creativity involves the whole brain.

A lot of the things that we've talked about are focused on different areas of the brain, but creativity is a whole brain process. different areas of the brain, but creativity is a whole brain process. For instance, if creativity involves visual things, then we need the ventral visual stream. Parts of the temporal cortex need to be active to give us the visual version of creativity. What does it look like? And if we're thinking about different sounds or different noises or different music, then you need the primary auditory cortex to be involved. The same is true for the physical sensations of creativity. If what we're thinking about is like a new experience, then you want the motor system to be involved.

experience than you want the motor system to be involved. I guess what I'm saying is that creativity is a whole brain process. You need the parts of the brain that are involved in the creative experience to be there. But what does it mean to be really creative? Like what's going on? Well, you could probably go back to our friend, the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is associated with the generation of new ideas and new thoughts. So the prefrontal cortex has to be involved. And what it's doing is it's basically throwing out ideas and you pick the ones that you want to hear. For instance, the prefrontal cortex might be suggesting, hey, you know, what about this idea?

And creativity is just really when we verbalize that other option. We go out there and say, all right, let's listen to what my brain is telling me. Now, the prefrontal cortex does follow rules. It's our analytical system. If you think back to decision-making, it's our system too. So the prefrontal cortex is throwing out ideas within a certain framework, but it's throwing out ideas. I can give you an example of creativity with one of my favorite studies ever. The researchers in question from UCSD basically asked people to be creative, come up with new ideas, think about something new. And they just sat back and listened. Now, by listening, they actually had people in the fMRI scanner,

so they were measuring blood-brain activation. And what they found was that the brain just erupted. When people were truly being creative, there was activity across the brain. Parts of the brain were chiming in, basically going, here's the physical sensation, here's the visual sensation, here's the auditory sensation. But other parts of the brain were active as well. The emotional system was active,

adding that emotional content to creativity. And it was a whole brain activity. When we're creative, our brain is exploding. It's throwing out all the possible ideas that we can have. Now, I guess the real question is, that's cool when we want to be creative, but how do we trigger it? Like, you know, can we do this ourselves? Well, it turns out you can. To promote creativity is kind of like common sense. Our brains respond better when we're rested. So for instance, get the sleep you need. So, for instance, get the sleep you need. If you're tired, we're less likely to activate that creative system.

Exercise helps as well, of course. When we exercise on a regular basis, we're more likely to trigger that whole brain activation that we need for creativity. And, of course, diet. When we eat healthy and we avoid the things that we probably should avoid, again, we're more likely to trigger that pattern of brain activity that's associated with creativity. The whole brain activation that makes it kind of special. In other words, being creative is kind of boring. We need to sleep more, exercise more, and eat healthy. But what else is going on when we're being creative? Well, like I've said, it is a pattern of whole brain activity.

But it's a unique kind of pattern as well. One of the key things that researchers have found when we look at the brain is something called the default mode network. The default mode network is a pattern of brain activity that you see when you're actually not doing anything. The default mode network actually becomes active the less you do on purpose. Now, it's not the entire brain. It's actually parts of the prefrontal cortex, parts of the parietal cortex, and parts of the temporal cortex. And this pattern of brain activity increases when we're not doing things.

Now, people have associated the default mode network with creativity. For instance, if you want to start thinking of a new idea, a new poem, a new thing, you want to sing, for instance, then you see an increase in activity in the default mode network. But what's kind of funny about it is you can't control that. It's like behind the scenes, just doing its job. Now, of course, it goes back to the boring stuff I told you about. Sleep well, eat healthy, and exercise a lot. But when you do that stuff, you get an increase in

activity in the default mode network. This background pattern of brain activity just takes off. It starts firing. And that's associated with creativity. In other words, to promote creativity in the brain, it's almost the opposite of what you think. You can't do it on purpose. You almost have to do the things that you need to do not on purpose. You need your brain to take charge. So I'm not sure if this has been entirely useful. What's creativity all about?

Well, it's your brain just doing its thing. You know, it's the prefrontal cortex generating ideas. It's your emotional system throwing out emotional thoughts. It's your sensory system contributing information. And what I've just told you about the default mode network, it's this brain system that literally you can't control. So to be creative, you actually have to do the opposite of what you might think. You need to do less. You need to just let your brain run wild. Well, I'm sorry that's a short story, but that's creativity. In a sense, it's your brain's short story. It's your brain just doing what it does. But to promote the chances of creativity,

you need to give it room to move. You need to take care of yourself and let your brain do its thing. yourself and let your brain do its thing. I hope you've enjoyed the podcast. You can follow me on Twitter, That Neuroscience Guy, or you can check out our YouTube channel, That Neuroscience Guy. And of course, you can always email us with more ideas, thatneuroscienceguy at gmail.com. My name is Ola Krugolson and I'm that neuroscience guy thanks for listening