Public Release: 

Stanford researchers tie unexpected brain structures to creativity -- and to stifling it

Stanford University Medical Center



The cerebellum, traditionally viewed as the brain's practice-makes-perfect, movement-control center, hasn't been previously recognized as critical to creativity. The new study, a collaboration between the School of Medicine and Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, commonly known as the, is the first to find direct evidence that this brain region is involved in the creative process.

"Our findings represent an advance in our knowledge of the brain-based physiology of creativity," said the study's senior author, Allan Reiss, MD, professor of radiology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

The study, to be published May 28 in Scientific Reports, also suggests that shifting the brain's higher-level, executive-control centers into higher gear impairs, rather than enhances, creativity.

"We found that activation of the brain's executive-control centers -- the parts of the brain that enable you to plan, organize and manage your activities -- is negatively associated with creative task performance," said Reiss, who holds the Howard C. Robbins Professorship in Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences.

"Creativity is an incredibly valued human attribute in every single human endeavor, be it work or play," he continued. "In art, science and business, creativity is the engine that drives progress. As a practicing psychiatrist, I even see its importance to interpersonal relationships. People who can think creatively and flexibly frequently have the best outcomes."

The collaboration began about 3 ½ years ago when Grace Hawthorne, MFA, MBA, a consulting associate professor at the who teaches a design-thinking skills course called "Creative Gym," and one of her students approached Reiss, who has previously studied humor and other higher-level cognitive functions. They asked if he could objectively measure creativity, the better to confirm that Hawthorne's course can enhance it.

"We didn't know that much about how to do that," Reiss said. "So we decided to design a study that would give us baseline information on creativity's underlying neurophysiological processes."

How do you measure creativity?

As much as creativity may be in demand, it's not so easy to measure. At least 25 or 30 previous studies, mostly of professionally creative people such as jazz musicians and Emmy Award winners, have tried to look at neural correlates of creativity, said the study's lead author, Manish Saggar, PhD, an instructor in psychiatry and a member of the teaching team at the

"Everybody wants to think creatively," Saggar said. "But how do you get somebody to actually do that on command? Forcing people to think creatively may actually hamper creativity."

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that subjects' brain processes are monitored while they're confined inside a dark, cramped MRI chamber. This environment is not exactly the first place that comes to mind when you're thinking about places where creativity can flower, Saggar said.

"Creativity has to be measured in a fun environment," he said. "Otherwise, you're bound to have anxiety and performance issues."


"We didn't tell anyone, 'Be creative!' We just told them, 'Draw the word,'" Reiss said.

The drawings were captured on a special MRI-safe electronic tablet designed by study co-author Robert Dougherty, PhD, research director at the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging. The drawings were then sent to Hawthorne and Adam Royalty, a researcher at the and co-author of the study. Hawthorne and Royalty separately rated the drawings on five-point scales of appropriateness -- did it depict what it was supposed to? -- and creativity -- how many elements were in the drawing? How elaborate was it? How original?



'The more you think about it, the more you mess it up'


But those monkey findings may have thrown researchers off, Saggar said. Newer studies show that, unlike the monkey cerebellum, the human cerebellum has robust connections not only to the motor cortex, the brain's higher movement-control center, but to the other parts of the cortex as well.

"Anatomical and, now, functional evidence point to the cerebellum as doing much more than simply coordination of movement," Saggar said.


"It's likely that the cerebellum is the coordination center for the rest of brain, allowing other regions to be more efficient," said Reiss.

"As our study also shows, sometimes a deliberate attempt to be creative may not be the best way to optimize your creativity," he said. "While greater effort to produce creative outcomes involves more activity of executive-control regions, you actually may have to reduce activity in those regions in order to achieve creative outcomes."

Saggar put it more bluntly. "The more you think about it, the more you mess it up," he said.



The study was funded by a grant from the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, which is affiliated with Stanford's Center for Design Research.


