title: Emotional Intent Modulates The Neural Substrates Of Creativity: An fMRI Study of Emotionally Targeted Improvisation in Jazz Musicians.
abstract: Emotion is a primary motivator for creative behaviors, yet the interaction between the neural systems involved in creativity and those involved in emotion has not been studied. In the current study, we addressed this gap by using fMRI to examine piano improvisation in response to emotional cues. We showed twelve professional jazz pianists photographs of an actress representing a positive, negative or ambiguous emotion. Using a non-ferromagnetic thirty-five key keyboard, the pianists improvised music that they felt represented the emotion expressed in the photographs. Here we show that activity in prefrontal and other brain networks involved in creativity is highly modulated by emotional context. Furthermore, emotional intent directly modulated functional connectivity of limbic and paralimbic areas such as the amygdala and insula. These findings suggest that emotion and creativity are tightly linked, and that the neural mechanisms underlying creativity may depend on emotional state.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA.
authors.forename: Malinda J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: McPherson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA.
authors.forename: Frederick S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.affiliation: Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202, USA.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lopez-Gonzalez
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA.
authors.forename: Patpong
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jiradejvong
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA.|Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202, USA.|Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, 94143, USA.
authors.forename: Charles J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Limb
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003405:Creativity; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult