title: Training your brain to be more creative: brain functional and structural changes induced by divergent thinking training.
abstract: Creativity is commonly defined as the ability to produce something both novel and useful. Stimulating creativity has great significance for both individual success and social improvement. Although increasing creative capacity has been confirmed to be possible and effective at the behavioral level, few longitudinal studies have examined the extent to which the brain function and structure underlying creativity are plastic. A cognitive stimulation (20 sessions) method was used in the present study to train subjects and to explore the neuroplasticity induced by training. The behavioral results revealed that both the originality and the fluency of divergent thinking were significantly improved by training. Furthermore, functional changes induced by training were observed in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and posterior brain regions. Moreover, the gray matter volume (GMV) was significantly increased in the dACC after divergent thinking training. These results suggest that the enhancement of creativity may rely not only on the posterior brain regions that are related to the fundamental cognitive processes of creativity (e.g., semantic processing, generating novel associations), but also on areas that are involved in top-down cognitive control, such as the dACC and DLPFC. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3375-3387, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Jiangzhou
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Qunlin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Qinglin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Yadan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Haijiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Dongtao
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Wenjing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China.|Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003405:Creativity; D005260:Female; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D009929:Organ Size; D011581:Psychological Tests; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: DLPFC; dACC; divergent thinking; neural plasticity