Title: How Do Creative Ideas Emerge? A Multimodal Study of the Neurocognitive Bases of Remote Thinking in Normal and Pathological Conditions

Dr. Victor Altmayer

Abstract : 

Creativity is a key aspect of human cognition, involved in multiple aspects of our lives. Despite its fundamental role, the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying creative thinking remain incompletely understood. This work aims to clarify the key cognitive and cerebral mechanisms underlying remote thinking, a key aspect of creative cognition enabling the activation of mutually distant semantic elements.

Combining original cognitive tasks and multimodal brain imaging in both healthy people and patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, a neurodegenerative disease affecting regions involved in creativity), we reveal that creativity depends on both spontaneous and intentional generation of associations between distant concepts, their combination, the inhibition of unoriginal or inadequate ones, and the initiation of the verbal response. We identify distinct neural bases for each cognitive process, highlighting the critical role of the rostral prefrontal cortex in coordinating the generation and combination of remote associations, as well as the interplay between default mode and executive-control networks. Damage to this area, as seen in bvFTD, impairs creative thinking. 
By combining cognitive theory, neuroimaging, and lesion data, this work offers new insights into how creativity works and how it is affected by brain lesions, and offers translational perspectives for assessing and supporting creativity in clinical populations.

Aix-Marseille Université
INS - Faculté de Médecine, 27, Boulevard Jean Moulin
Marseille, 13005, France