Rostral and caudal prefrontal contribution to creativity: a meta-analysis of functional imaging data

• Published in: Frontiers in human neuroscience Vol. 7; p. 465
• Main Authors: Gonen-Yaacovi, Gil, de Souza, Leonardo Cruz, Levy, Richard, Urbanski, Marika, Josse, Goulven, Volle, Emmanuelle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 14.08.2013; Frontiers; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Brain research; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Cognitive science; Cortex (parietal); creative thinking; Creativity; divergent thinking; Flexibility; functional imaging; Hemispheric laterality; Life Sciences; Medical imaging; Memory; Meta-analysis; Neuroimaging; Neurons and Cognition; Neuroscience; Prefrontal cortex; semantic associations; Semantics; Temporal cortex; France; divergent thinking; semantic associations; insight problem solving; meta-analysis; originality; creative thinking; functional imaging; creativity
• ISSN: 1662-5161; 1662-5161
• DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00465

Creativity is of central importance for human civilization, yet its neurocognitive bases are poorly understood. The aim of the present study was to integrate existing functional imaging data by using the meta-analysis approach. We reviewed 34 functional imaging studies that reported activation foci during tasks assumed to engage creative thinking in healthy adults. A coordinate-based meta-analysis using Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) first showed a set of predominantly left-hemispheric regions shared by the various creativity tasks examined. These regions included the caudal lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), the medial and lateral rostral PFC, and the inferior parietal and posterior temporal cortices. Further analyses showed that tasks involving the combination of remote information (combination tasks) activated more anterior areas of the lateral PFC than tasks involving the free generation of unusual responses (unusual generation tasks), although both types of tasks shared caudal prefrontal areas. In addition, verbal and non-verbal tasks involved the same regions in the left caudal prefrontal, temporal, and parietal areas, but also distinct domain-oriented areas. Taken together, these findings suggest that several frontal and parieto-temporal regions may support cognitive processes shared by diverse creativity tasks, and that some regions may be specialized for distinct types of processes. In particular, the lateral PFC appeared to be organized along a rostro-caudal axis, with rostral regions involved in combining ideas creatively and more posterior regions involved in freely generating novel ideas.