Creative Brains Show Reduced Mid Frontal Theta

Creativity is considered to be the driving force behind innovation and progress, yet the mechanisms supporting creative thought remain elusive. In the current study, we investigated whether fluctuations in top-down control are related to creative thinking. Here, participants performed a ‘caption this’ task in which they had to provide an original and apt caption to accompany a presented picture, while EEG signals were recorded. To assess changing levels of top-down control, we made use of the strong relationship between mid frontal oscillatory activity in the theta range (4-7 HZ) and top-down control. Results demonstrate that specifically during the process of optimization and implementation of creative solutions, lower levels of mid frontal theta resulted in higher levels of creativity. In addition, increased creativity related to enhanced functional connectivity between occipital and mid frontal cortex. Together, our findings indicate that creativity benefits from a top-down induced shift towards an internally-oriented state during idea optimization and evaluation.