The relationships between EEG θ and β oscillations and the level of creativity

Abstract

The interrelations between the level of creativity and both the baseline power and event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ED/ES) of θ and β rhythms during a figural creative task (Torrance’s “Incomplete Figures” test) were studied under the conditions of different motivations. A higher motivation was caused by instruction “to create most unique images” as opposed to the instruction “to create images.” The subjects, right-handed students (14 males and 14 females), were divided into two groups with high and low originality scores (OSs). The baseline power and the ED/ES of the θ2 and β rhythms of the subjects were found to depend on the level of creativity and person’s sex only in response to the instruction “to create images.” Male subjects with higher OSs differed from those with lower OSs in a stronger ED of the θ2 rhythm in temporal-parietal-occipital brain regions, whereas these differences were absent in female subjects. Task performance was accompanied by ED of β1 rhythm in men with higher OSs, whereas in women with higher OSs, ES was recorded in the same band. Only in women with high OSs did analysis of β1, 2 reference power show a higher β1 power in the caudal hemispheric regions as compared to the frontal ones. High-OS subjects of different genders also differed in the lateral patterns of activity in the electrode loci Fp1/2 (β1) and Fp1/2, F7/8 (β2). Our results suggest that a high level of creativity in men and women is related to sex-dependent specific patterns of frontal-occipital and lateral activities of θ and β rhythm oscillators in the brain cortex.