Sleep & Creativity
REM sleep favors the restructuring of problem-related semantic associations
Théophile Bieth, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Nicolas Decat, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Yoed N. Kenett, Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003 Israel
Marie Scuccimarra, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Marcela Ovando-Tellez, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Alizée Lopez-Persem, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Célia Lacaux, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Saoussen Ben Younes, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Arthur Le Coz, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Sarah Moreno-Rodriguez, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Isabelle Arnulf, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Emmanuelle Volle, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
Delphine Oudiette, Sorbonne University, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute -ICM-, Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
REM sleep is considered a ‘hyperassociative’ state enhancing the connections between weakly related concepts, thereby facilitating memory restructuring — a process proposed to be critical in creative problem-solving. Here, we empirically explore this hypothesis by testing participants on a riddle before and after a 90-minute incubation period that included only NREM sleep, REM sleep or wakefulness. We quantified memory restructuring by computing differences in problem-related semantic memory network (SemNets) properties between pre- and post-incubation. For each sleep stage, we extracted fined-grained EEG measures, which are known to distinguish different states of cognitive richness. REM sleep broadly facilitated problem-related word associations but also reshaped the dominant problem representation by combining semantically remote concepts in memory or reducing strong but solution-irrelevant associations of ideas. Such REM sleep-related restructuring was associated with various EEG measures indexing a richer cognitive state. While REM drove memory restructuring, it alone did not boost problem-solving success, suggesting that additional processes are necessary for creative breakthroughs. Overall, our study confirmed that evaluating individual SemNets changes is a promising approach for exploring external factors that may influence restructuring processes and creativity. Even though restructuring did not convert into successful solving, we provide a scientific basis to advise that sleeping on a problem could help overcoming an impasse.
The Creative Brain in N1 Sleep: A Sleep Lab Study
Laura Roklicer, Swansea University
REM and N1 sleep represent unique cognitive states in which associative thinking flourishes, making them fertile grounds for creative exploration. In a sleep lab experiment that forms part of my broader doctoral thesis, I investigated how these states influence poetic creativity. Participants (N = 16) underwent a six-week intervention, combined with visits to the sleep lab, specifically targeting the hypnagogic state—a transitional period between wakefulness and sleep. Hypnagogia was induced through timed naps to maximise entry into N1 sleep, followed by creative tasks immediately upon waking. Participants then wrote poetry based on the images, sensations, emotions, and ideas experienced during their hypnagogic state. Creativity was assessed using the Alternative Uses Test (AUT) and a customised poetry scoring system, measuring flow, form, emotional depth, and symbolic expression. Results showed improvements in both AUT scores and poetic creativity after the intervention. The maximum single-item score participants achieved on the AUT was significantly higher post-sleep, with participants producing more divergent and novel uses for everyday objects. Poetry scores demonstrated improvement across all tested categories, with emotional and symbolic expression showing the biggest change after sleep, while flow was the most frequently reported subjectively assessed improvement. This study contributes to understanding how altered sleep states can facilitate creative ideation and problem solving, building on the associative thinking perspective of Beaty and Kenett (2023) and Lacaux et al. (2021) findings regarding the N1 state being a creative sweetspot.
Neural Correlates of Divergent Thinking Following Experimental Sleep Restriction
Michael K. Scullin, Baylor University
Ash Rajesh, Washington University in St. Louis
Allison Nickel, Beloit College
Blake K. Barley, Baylor University
Natalya Pruett, Baylor University
Adam Green, Georgetown University
Evan M. Gordon, Washington University in St. Louis
Steve M. Nelson, University of Minnesota
Sleep loss disrupts attention and memory consolidation, but minimal work has investigated sleep-creativity causal relationships. A recent review concluded that all prior experimental tests of sleep deprivation on creativity showed low-to-moderate rigor (Lim, Williams, & Bullock, 2024). We conducted an experimental, cross-over designed study of sleep restriction’s effects on attention, convergent thinking, and divergent thinking in 60 healthy young adults. This report focuses on the divergent thinking task. Following a baseline night, participants underwent three nights of sleep restriction (01:30–07:00) or three nights of normal sleep (22:00–07:00) in a polysomnography-monitored environment. After a washout period, they completed the other sleep condition (order counterbalanced). At the end of each phase, participants underwent neuroimaging (3T Philips MRI) while completing runs of the Alternate Uses Task (divergent thinking) and the Ordinary Uses Task (control). In each task, participants were instructed to think of alternative uses (or common physical characteristics) for a given object for 12 seconds and then prompted to speak their responses. We observed similar levels of response fluency and expert-rated originality across conditions. When comparing task responsive regions in the divergent thinking task relative to the control task, we identified stronger activations following normal sleep than sleep restriction in anterior, mid- and posterior cingulate areas, that extended into the middle temporal gyrus, as well as in premotor and motor areas. These findings suggest that sleep loss may influence how individuals attempt to generate divergent ideas.
Neurostimulation & Creativity
The effect of memory reconfiguration via creative thinking is enhanced with transcranial direct current stimulation on the left angular gyrus
Ke Ding, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Yoed N. Kenett, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Creative problem-solving relies on the reorganization of existing knowledge to generate new ideas, facilitating the formation and restructuring of complex knowledge structures. However, the neural implementation of creative memory reconfigurations and its behavioral relevance remains elusive. To this end, participants (N = 36) underwent anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS, 1.5 mA, 22 minutes to enhance neuronal excitability) over the left angular gyrus or sham stimulation (s-tDCS, 1.5 mA, 30 seconds to simulate active stimulus) during a creative story generation task (using three unrelated words to generate creative stories), across two sessions a week apart. The left angular gyrus is thought to play a critical role in combining semantic information and guiding the reconfiguration of memory representations. Before and after this task, participants completed free word association and relatedness judgment tasks under electroencephalography (EEG) recording to examine the reconfiguration of their semantic memory structures. We found that creative story generation facilitated semantic memory restructuring—measured with graph theoretical measures—especially under a-tDCS. At the neural level, creative story generation is associated with reduced N400 effects (lower semantic integration effort), primarily observed in frontal regions under a-tDCS. Furthermore, participants showed increased representation similarity (more consistency in neural responses) of story-related words under a-tDCS post story generation. Thus, our findings demonstrate the role of creativity, especially when coupled with left angular gyrus stimulation in creative memory reconfigurations.
Can non-invasive brain stimulation really alter visual art-making? Application of tDCS to explore the role of frontotemporal brain regions in creative and realistic drawing.
Ryan Joseph Slaby*, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Maximilian Douda*, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Paula A. Angermair*, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Zaira Cattaneo, Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
Matthew Pelowski, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
* joint-first authors
An emerging collection of case evidence has suggested artistic change in individuals with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and thus a potential neural-behavioral connection for creativity, artistic quality, or stylistic change. These suggestions have also served as inspiration for causative studies looking to potentially "duplicate" some of the effects posited for FTD-art linkages, regarding left frontotemporal cortex (LFT) degeneration, compensatory right frontotemporal cortex (RFT) activity. To date, such causative attempts have been based on very small or highly comorbid samples alongside paradigms and assessment methods perhaps not best suited to detect artistic change. 60 healthy participants underwent anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the LFT or RFT in a double-blind, counterbalanced within-participant design, completing a series of creative and realistic artistic tasks previously shown to systematically represent ability and style differences between individuals. The produced artworks were evaluated in a subsequent study by professional artists, who were naive to the artwork provenance, using standardized scales. Results revealed no effects for LFT stimulation but identified RFT-related enhancements in realism, particularly during second-session tasks, indicating that tDCS, while probably not directly impacting creativity or art making, may amplify learning effects. These findings offer insights into the neural mechanisms underlying artistic skill and compensatory processes observed in FTD. This study advances the potential for systematic research to explore how neural changes impact art-making in both healthy and neurodegenerative contexts.
Precision network-targeted neuromodulation to test causal links between creativity and executive function
Danny Holzman, Georgetown University
Oded Kleinmintz, Georgetown University
Brian Kim, Drexel University
Kelly Michaelis, Georgetown University
Apoorva Kelkar, Drexel University
Kristin Yung, Georgetown University
Lizzie Kaplan, Georgetown University
Melanie Collier, Georgetown University
John Medaglia, Drexel University
Adam Green, Georgetown University
Executive control (EC) and creativity are essential for complex tasks, yet their relationship remains unclear. EC relies on the frontoparietal control network (FPCN), while creativity involves atypical interactions between FPCN and the default mode network (DMN). This study modulates DMN-FPCN connectivity via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to reveal causal links between network dynamics and cognition. Using a within-person neuroimaging design with five person-specific TMS montages, we assess creative flexibility and originality (Alternative Uses Task), EC (attentional flexibility; Navon), and network connectivity (n = 18). Results from linear mixed-effects models show that stimulating FPCN followed by DMN (FPCNDMN) enhances creative flexibility, with greater improvements in individuals with higher baseline DMN-FPCN resting state functional connectivity (RSFC). For originality, FPCN-only and FPCNDMN TMS improve performance, with effects strongest in those with lower within-DMN RSFC. For EC, performance improves following all sessions that stimulate FPCN but decreases with DMN-only TMS. Lower within-FPCN RSFC predicts better performance following FPCN-only and FPCNDMN TMS. Data collection is ongoing, and future analyses will examine TMS effects on task-related network connectivity to test how individual variability in TMS-induced changes in network connectivity relate to performance. The present findings suggest that stimulating FPCN and DMN in sequence may boost creative performance, whereas stimulating FPCN and DMN may have opposing effects on EC (improving vs. impairing). Results highlight the likely importance of individual variability in network connectivity.