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Openness to experience and psychophysiological interaction patterns during divergent thinking

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Abstract

Creativity is the ability to produce something novel and useful. Various tasks have been used to explore the neural bases of creativity. However, studies exploring the relationship between the brain regions during divergent thinking are still rare. Given that the brain works in networks, exploring the functional connectivity (FC) patterns during divergent thinking is important. The present study explored the FC patterns during alternative uses task and its relationship with openness to experience. Psychophysiological interaction results corroborated that the inferior parietal lobule was positively connected to the precuneus and middle temporal gyrus. Middle frontal gyrus/superior frontal gyrus was positively connected to the precuneus and supramarginal gyrus. Individual difference analysis revealed that openness to experience was positively related to the strength of FCs between some key regions of default mode, cognitive control and salience networks. Findings confirmed the network-based mechanisms underlying creativity and the neural basis of individual differences of openness to experience.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31470981; 31571137; 31500885; 31600878; 31771231), Project of the National Defense Science and Technology Innovation Special Zone, Chang Jiang Scholars Program, National Outstanding Young People Plan, the Program for the Top Young Talents by Chongqing, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1709568, SWU1609177), the Postgraduate Science Innovation Foundation of Chongqing (CYB18109), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (cstc2015jcyjA10106), Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation (151023), the Research Program Funds of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Jiangzhou Sun, Liang Shi, Qunlin Chen, Wenjing Yang, Dongtao Wei, Jinfu Zhang, Qinglin Zhang & Jiang Qiu

  2. Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, No.2, TianSheng Road, Beibei District, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Jiangzhou Sun, Liang Shi, Qunlin Chen, Wenjing Yang, Dongtao Wei, Jinfu Zhang, Qinglin Zhang & Jiang Qiu

  3. Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jiang Qiu

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  1. Jiangzhou Sun
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Brain Imaging Center Institutional Review Board of Southwest China University and with the standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (1991).

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Sun, J., Shi, L., Chen, Q. et al. Openness to experience and psychophysiological interaction patterns during divergent thinking. Brain Imaging and Behavior 13, 1580–1589 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-018-9965-2

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