Abstract
Finding creative solutions to difficult problems is a fundamental aspect of human culture and a skill highly needed. However, the exact neural processes underlying creative problem solving remain unclear. Insightful problem solving tasks were shown to be a valid method for investigating one subcomponent of creativity: the Aha!‐moment. Finding insightful solutions during a remote associates task (RAT) was found to elicit specific cortical activity changes. Considering the strong affective components of Aha!‐moments, as manifested in the subjectively experienced feeling of relief following the sudden emergence of the solution of the problem without any conscious forewarning, we hypothesized the subcortical dopaminergic reward network to be critically engaged during Aha. To investigate those subcortical contributions to insight, we employed ultra‐high‐field 7 T fMRI during a German Version of the RAT. During this task, subjects were exposed to word triplets and instructed to find a solution word being associated with all the three given words. They were supposed to press a button as soon as they felt confident about their solution without further revision, allowing us to capture the exact event of Aha!‐moment. Besides the finding on cortical involvement of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG), here we showed for the first time robust subcortical activity changes related to insightful problem solving in the bilateral thalamus, hippocampus, and the dopaminergic midbrain comprising ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and caudate nucleus. These results shed new light on the affective neural mechanisms underlying insightful problem solving.
Highlights
Besides the finding on cortical involvement of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus, here we showed for the first time robust subcortical activity changes related to insightful problem solving in the bilateral thalamus, hippocampus, and the dopaminergic midbrain comprising ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and caudate nucleus
We focused on revealing brain structures involved during Aha-moments, and used ultra-high-field fMRI at 7 T and a fast, multiband-accelerated sequence to assess brain activity while participants were solving remote associate task (RAT) problems
Thereby we are (a) corroborating former research linking insight to aSMG and hippocampus and (b) for the first time highlighting subcortical structures of the dopaminergic pathway, the NAcc as a critical hub linked to this very moment of creative insight (Aha!)
Summary
Solution (Shen, Yuan, Liu, & Luo, 2016; Topolinski & Reber, 2010). One of the first anecdotal evidence of Aha! or Eureka!-moment was associ-. Taking into account a strong affective and learning component as part of the insight experience (Cranford & Moss, 2012; Metcalfe, 1986a,1986b) and the newly drawn link between creativity and dopaminergic activity (Chermahini & Hommel, 2010; Flaherty, 2005; Kulisevsky, Pagonabarraga, & Martinez-Corral, 2009; Lhommee et al, 2014; Salvi, Bricolo, Franconeri, Kounios, & Beeman, 2015; Schwingenschuh, Katschnig, Saurugg, Ott, & Bhatia, 2010; Zabelina, Colzato, Beeman, & Hommel, 2016), raises the question if the influence of subcortical areas during insight processing was underestimated so far This assumption becomes even clearer considering the results of a comprehensive psychological study, where the participants had to freely describe their emotional states associated with insight (Shen et al, 2016), and the three main emotions identified with an Ahamoment are happy, ease, and certainty. Thereby we assessed activation in areas involved in the phenomenological aspects of positive effect, the feeling of certainty about a solution found with insight, and the formation of new memories and associations
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