FMRI Study Of Human Creative Thinking

As the highest form of human intelligence, creative thinking has been the research focus in many disciplines. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) developed rapidly in recent years as a new technology for neuroimaging, which provides a convenient approach for us to study the neural mechanisms of creative thinking in human brains. On the other hand, research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) also made significant progress in1980s, which proposed various approaches to the simulation of human intelligence. In particular, intelligent computer-aided design systems (ICAD) received notable investigation and consequently were applied extensively into many areas. The framework of "multi-source analog generation design", based on analogical reasoning, is considered to be one of those successful models for simulation of human’s creative thinking process. This framework is able to mimic human creative thinking to certain extent, because of its characteristics of capable of generating things that did not previously exist. Following this concept and work, we developed a CAD system, called "Three-Source Analog System for Face Generation" for fMRI studies of human creative thinking. This system is which is magnetic resonance (MR) compatible, i.e. usable in an MR environment.We use this platform in an fMRI study to explore the neural mechanisms of the creative thinking. We designed two kinds of task:The "design task" under the open-ends mode and the "control task" under the problem solving mode. We collected imaging data from a total of15participants of healthy adult. Statistical analysis of comparing the imaging data at the two modes showed that the design task has a more significant activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, middle frontal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, temporal lobe gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral hippocampus and precuneus.This activation pattern in human brains is consistent with the well-known model of "Three-factor Anatomical Model of Creativity". Based on the findings, we speculate that:(1) The medial prefrontal cortex may associate with the reception of ego during the creative activity,(2) The temporal lobe may be in charge of constant production and output of new ideas,(3) The limbic system consisting of the anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus could be confirmed to be the major responsible of the power source for driving creative activity. Generally speaking, creative thinking is the result of a collaboration of multiple brain regions, whose activities demonstrate a processing pattern of distributed network.