Anna-Lisa Schuler has been working on our CREAM data and found out that people with stronger brain connectivity of the dopaminergic midbrain also show higher levels of creativity. She did her analysis on resting state data, this means, at that time our participants did not perform any specific task. Instead, while lying inside our comfortable MRI scanner, they engaged in daydreaming. Karl Friston has called this state of mind unconstrained cognition because people are not distracted by our experimental stimuli.

We previously observed stronger dopaminergic midbrain connectivity in people who have an Aha! moment. Now, Anna-Lisa’s new finding links a personality trait to brain connectivity. The next question is, does frequent engagement in creative trinking and repeated experience of Aha! moments boost your creativity – or are creative people more likely to have Aha! moments?

Schuler A, Tik M, Sladky R, Luft CDB, Hoffmann A, Woletz M, Zioga I, Bhattacharya J, Windischberger C. Modulations in resting state networks of subcortical structures linked to creativity. Neuroimage. 2019 Mar 29;195:311-319. 2019.