The neuroscience of creativity seeks to disentangle the complex brain processes that underpin the generation of novel ideas. Neuroimaging studies of functional connectivity, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revealed individual differences in brain network organization associated with creative ability; however, much of the extant research is limited to laboratory-based divergent thinking measures. To overcome these limitations, we compare functional brain connectivity in a cohort of creative experts ( n = 27) and controls ( n = 26) and examine links with creative behavior. First, we replicate prior findings showing reduced connectivity in visual cortex related to higher creative performance. Second, we examine whether this result is driven by integrated or segregated connectivity. Third, we examine associations between functional connectivity and vivid distal simulation separately in creative experts and controls. In accordance with past work, our results show reduced connectivity to the primary visual cortex in creative experts at rest. Additionally, we observe a negative association between distal simulation vividness and connectivity to the lateral visual cortex in creative experts. Taken together, these results highlight connectivity profiles of highly creative people and suggest that creative thinking may be related to, though not fully redundant with, the ability to vividly imagine the future. Author Summary This study sought to uncover the neurocognitive basis of creativity by comparing brain connectivity in a cohort of creative experts and controls. Using graph theory methods, we replicate past work showing reduced connectivity to the primary visual cortex in highly creative people. Additionally, we observed a negative association between vividness of distal future simulation and connectivity to the lateral visual cortex in creative experts. Taken together, these findings highlight connectivity profiles of highly creative people and suggest that creative thinking may be related to the ability to vividly imagine events in the distant future.

A fundamental challenge in preprocessing pipelines for neuroimaging datasets is to increase the signal-to-noise ratio for subsequent analyses. In the same line, we suggest here that the application of the consensus clustering approach to brain connectivity matrices can be a valid additional step for connectome processing to find subgroups of subjects with reduced intragroup variability and therefore increasing the separability of the distinct subgroups when connectomes are used as a biomarker. Moreover, by partitioning the data with consensus clustering before any group comparison (for instance, between a healthy population vs. a pathological one), we demonstrate that unique regions within each cluster arise and bring new information that could be relevant from a clinical point of view.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects structural connectivity, triggering the reorganization of structural–functional circuits in a manner that remains poorly understood. We focus here on brain network reorganization in relation to postural control deficits after TBI. We enrolled young participants who had suffered moderate to severe TBI, comparing them to young, typically developing control participants. TBI patients (but not controls) recruited prefrontal regions to interact with two separated networks: (1) a subcortical network, including parts of the motor network, basal ganglia, cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, posterior cingulate gyrus, and precuneus; and (2) a task-positive network, involving regions of the dorsal attention system, together with dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal regions. We also found that the increased prefrontal connectivity in TBI patients was correlated with some postural control indices, such as the amount of body sway, whereby patients with worse balance increased their connectivity in frontal regions more strongly. The increased prefrontal connectivity found in TBI patients may provide the structural scaffolding for stronger cognitive control of certain behavioral functions, consistent with the observations that various motor tasks are performed less automatically following TBI and that more cognitive control is associated with such actions. Author Summary Using a new hierarchical atlas whose modules are relevant for both structure and function, we found increased structural and functional connectivity in prefrontal regions in TBI patients as compared to controls, in addition to a general pattern of overall decreased connectivity across the TBI brain. Although this increased prefrontal connectivity reflected interactions between brain areas when participants were at rest, the enhanced connectivity was found to be negatively correlated with active behavior such as postural control performance. Thus our findings, obtained when the brain was at rest, potentially reflect how TBI patients orchestrate task-related activations to support behavior in everyday life. In particular, our findings of enhanced connectivity in TBI might help these patients overcome deficits in cerebellar and subcortical connections, in addition to compensating for deficits when interacting with the task-positive network. Hence, it appears that greater cognitive control is exerted over certain actions in order to overcome deficits in their automatic processing.