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Neuroscience research reveals creativity's brainprint

· Neuroscience

What is happening in the brain during periods of heightened creativity? In their recently published paper, Beaty and colleagues (2018) unearth the neurological signature of creativity, using sophisticated approaches to identify the neural network activity, the "brainprint" as it were, which is associated with divergent thinking, and then using that understanding to distinguish more creative from less creative brain activity. Of most interest is the reference to the “Big Three” brain networks — the default mode network, the executive control network, and the salience network“.

There isn't one "creativity" area in the brain; creativity emerges from the interplay of complex brain activity involving multiple more basic systems. The implications of this work, just in the early stages, are remarkable.