Creativity and Insight: Unlocking the Creative Mind by Inducing Insight

Everyone is familiar with the infamous "A-ha!" moment. Suddenly, a light bulb goes off, and an individual is immediately gifted with a solution to a problem or finally understands a punchline to a joke. But what happens in the brain when we have these moments? Describing how you got to the solution of a problem when insight was involved is near impossible. When asked, one might say "it just came to me" or "I suddenly realized it." In other words, there is no clear, logical path that the person who experienced insight is able to follow that lead them to a solution; one second they were unaware and the next they had one hundred percent confidence they were correct. How does this happen?

Many studies have been conducted trying to answer this question. At the neuronal level, researchers are interested in intercellular communication in order to determine how an individual arrives at a eureka moment. Using a variety of different methods, researchers have looked at the difference between analysis, a continuous and gradual approach towards a solution, and insight, a solution that pops into one's head all at once. One study conducted by John Kounios and Mark Beeman used electrical stimulation of the brain to try and induce insight in individuals. In this study, participants were given a set of problems to solve while they were in an fMRI scanner. These problems were timed, meaning that participants only had a set amount of time to solve them. Participants were asked to self-reflect and determine whether they had solved the problems by analysis or by insight. In this way, researchers were able to use fMRI to see what the brain looked like when people solved problems in these two ways. The scans seemed to show that, when participants reported that they had experienced insight, activity was concentrated in the right hemisphere. More specifically, the anterior temporal lobe of the right hemisphere was activated, and these participants were more likely to be correct when they solved problems by insight than they were when they solved problems by analysis; those who experienced insight were right 92% of the time.

After determination that the anterior temporal lobe of the right hemisphere was the most involved brain structure during insight, the researchers turned their attention to trying to induce insight in participants. To do this, the right anterior temporal lobe was electrically stimulated by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In this procedure, the excitability of specific neurons in the brain is increased by passing a small electrical current through the skull. The electric current ever-so-slightly raises the resting membrane potential, thereby making threshold easier to achieve and action potentials more likely to fire. The hope was that using tDCS would increase neuron excitability, making insight easier to obtain in individuals solving the same types of problems that they did during fMRI scanning.

The method worked; the results demonstrated that participants were able to solve more problems when they were receiving tDCS to the right anterior temporal lobe than when no tDCS was administered. This provided evidence that increased excitability of the neurons in this area lead to more frequent problem-solving abilities by insight. Interestingly, in the process of this study, researchers found that there are many biomarkers that can show one is experiencing insight. For example, the eyes are heavily involved in this process. People who are experiencing insight tend to blink more frequently and for a longer time just prior to having an insight. The researchers explained this by reasoning that it reduces visual stimulation, which allows the brain to focus more on gathering an insight by decreasing the amount of external distractions.

Another study by Allan W. Snyder et. al was interested in the same behavior of insight and creativity, but related it to savant syndrome patients. Savant syndrome is a condition in which people with developmental disorders such as autism or brain injuries/diseases have very specific skills or abilities that are well above average. These skills can include musical abilities, drawing, and performing calculations. The researchers noticed that the skills savants possessed are generally unattainable by the normal population, and that if regular people were able to access these abilities, they should be able to increase their creativity. They aimed at releasing the genius that lives dormant within each of us. So how would average people be able to tap into these creative abilities?

Savants in general have a dysfunction in the left hemisphere of their brain. This prompts the right hemisphere to increase its activity in order to compensate for the lack of activity in the left hemisphere. Thus, very similar to what the Kounios and Beeman lab studied, these researchers decided to use electrical brain stimulation. One approach that was considered was the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In this method, a powerful magnet is used to disrupt specific neurons in a specific part of the brain. This disruption, which would be placed over parts of the left hemisphere, would then force the right hemisphere to compensate, hopefully opening up the possibility of more creative and savant-like ideas, including insight. Another method was identical to the one used in the previous study:  tDCS.

In this experiment, a cathode was placed over the left anterior temporal lobe while an anode was placed over the right anterior temporal lobe. The cathode served to decrease activity of neurons in the left anterior temporal lobe while the anode increased activity of neurons in the right anterior temporal lobe, mimicking how the brains of patients with savant syndrome actually work. The results were successful. In a problem in which none of the participants were able to solve without electrical stimulation, almost 50% of them were able to solve it while receiving tDCS.

Creativity and insight are two concepts that go hand in hand. By researching what goes on in the brain during insight and finding ways to enhance creative abilities, many doors open into the future of humanity. More creative solutions to problems that the world faces may have significant effects on how our species progresses. Electrical brain stimulation is the first step into unlocking our own creative abilities; who knows where it may go in the future.


Sources:

Figure 1. 2008. Semantic Scholar, www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation%3A-a-tool-to-Schlaug-Renga/b5bbd3553e9af001df969c0a676fb669465cce73. Accessed 23 Feb. 2019.

Kounios, John, and Mark Beeman. "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight." Annual Reviews, 2014. Annual Review of Psychology, doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115154. Accessed 23 Feb. 2019.

"Savant Syndrome." SSM Health, www.agnesian.com/page/savant-syndrome-faqs. Accessed 23 Feb. 2019.

Snyder, Allan W., et al. "Boost Creativity with Electric Brain Stimulation." Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2017. Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/boost-creativity-with-electric-brain-stimulation1/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2019.