Complex cognitive processes, like creative thinking, rely on interactions among multiple neurocognitive processes to generate effective and innovative behaviors on demand, for which the brain’s connector hubs play a crucial role. However, the unique contribution of specific hub sets to creative thinking is unknown. Employing three functional magnetic resonance imaging datasets (total N = 1,911), we demonstrate that connector hub sets are organized in a hierarchical manner based on diversity, with “control-default hubs”—which combine regions from the frontoparietal control and default mode networks—positioned at the apex. Specifically, control-default hubs exhibit the most diverse resting-state connectivity profiles and play the most substantial role in facilitating interactions between regions with dissimilar neurocognitive functions, a phenomenon we refer to as “diverse functional interaction”. Critically, we found that the involvement of control-default hubs in facilitating diverse functional interaction robustly relates to creativity, explaining both task-induced functional connectivity changes and individual creative performance. Our findings suggest that control-default hubs drive diverse functional interaction in the brain, enabling complex cognition, including creative thinking. We thus uncover a biologically plausible explanation that further elucidates the widely reported contributions of certain frontoparietal control and default mode network regions in creativity studies.
While the brain’s functional network architecture is largely conserved between resting and task states, small but significant changes in functional connectivity support complex cognition. In this study, we used a modified Raven’s Progressive Matrices Task to examine symbolic and perceptual reasoning in human participants undergoing fMRI scanning. Previously, studies have focused predominantly on discrete symbolic versions of matrix reasoning, even though the first few trials of the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices task consist of continuous perceptual stimuli. Our analysis examined the activation patterns and functional reconfiguration of brain networks associated with resting state and both symbolic and perceptual reasoning. We found that frontoparietal networks, including the cognitive control and dorsal attention networks, were significantly activated during abstract reasoning. We determined that these same task-active regions exhibited flexibly-reconfigured functional connectivity when transitioning from resting state to the abstract reasoning task. Conversely, we showed that a stable network core of regions in default and somatomotor networks was maintained across both resting and task states. We propose that these regionally-specific changes in the functional connectivity of frontoparietal networks puts the brain in a “task-ready” state, facilitating efficient task-based activation.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10381606
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Cerebral Cortex
- Volume:
- 33
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 1047-3211
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 5761-5773
- Size(s):
- ["p. 5761-5773"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)Abstract Creative cognition has been consistently associated with functional connectivity between frontoparietal control and default networks. However, recent research identified distinct connectivity dynamics for subnetworks within the larger frontoparietal system—one subnetwork (FPCNa) shows positive coupling with the default network and another subnetwork (FPCNb) shows negative default coupling—raising questions about how these networks interact during creative cognition. Here we examine frontoparietal subnetwork functional connectivity in a large sample of participants (n = 171) who completed a divergent creative thinking task and a resting-state scan during fMRI. We replicated recent findings on functional connectivity of frontoparietal subnetworks at rest: FPCNa positively correlated with the default network and FPCNb negatively correlated with the default network. Critically, we found that divergent thinking evoked functional connectivity between both frontoparietal subnetworks and the default network, but in different ways. Using community detection, we found that FPCNa regions showed greater coassignment to a default network community. However, FPCNb showed overall stronger functional connectivity with the default network—reflecting a reversal of negative connectivity at rest—and the strength of FPCNb-default network connectivity correlated with individual creative ability. These findings provide novel evidence of a behavioral benefit to the cooperation of typically anticorrelated brain networks.more » « less
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