Your Brain on Creativity

For me it's a non-negotiable

Creative practices facilitate emotional regulation in a similar and complementary fashion to mindfulness techniques, by engaging all three neural networks: the Default Mode Network (imagination and narrative), the Interoceptive Network (internal alignment), and the Dorsal Attention Network (task focus). Where mindfulness switches us out of the Default Mode Network into other competing mental states, creative emotional expression actually rewires it.

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is active in both the Interoceptive and Default Mode Networks. Through art therapy, the mPFC becomes more activated than the dorsal prefrontal cortex (the eyebrow-knitting area). The mPFC is associated with the “high road” behaviors of compassion and open-mindedness, whereas the emotionally dysfunctional actions of the DMN are dominated by the amygdala/limbic system “low road.” Creative emotional expression helps to alleviate amygdala dominance, enhancing emotional processing and increasing mPFC involvement to reduce negative emotional bias during introspection (Barnett & Vasiu, 2024). We engage in less fight-or-flight behavior and show more of the mental flexibility, thoughtfulness, and choice of the “high road” toward ourselves and others.

The science of creativity leapt forward in 2018

That was the year researchers first identified highly creative people by the increased coordination across their neural networks (Beaty et al., 2018). They ranked creativity based on task performance and surveys of college student volunteers on a scale of 1 to 5. Then the students were asked to brainstorm and report creative uses of an everyday object they were shown, while their brain activity (measured as changes in blood oxygen) was mapped using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

A common measure of connectivity between brain regions — functional connectivity — is estimated as the statistical similarity (correlation) of oxygen use across brain regions. Neural networks are mapped with fMRI by identifying the set of regions with high signal correlation. When there is no task, we measure the Default Mode Network. During creative tasks like the Alternative Uses Task (AUT), Beaty’s team mapped the “creative” brain network.

Then they took it a step further. They ranked the volunteers’ performance and statistically identified the connectivity features common to high- and low-creativity brains. The low-creativity pattern looked like the emotional “low road” — more connectivity in the limbic system with some involvement of the DMN. The high-creativity network, by contrast, emphasized connection between the medial prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, with strong DMN engagement plusthe inclusion of the Interoceptive and Dorsal Attention Networks. In other words: creativity relates to coordination across these diverse neural networks — like monks at rest!

Lower creativity, on the other hand, occurred when people engaged predominantly the DMN. And while the differences in actual network activity during the creative task were not statistically significant, the common features of the “high creative” brains correctly identified all the highly creative students. In the default state — the no-task condition — Beaty and colleagues also showed that highly creative individuals have more coordination between the DMN, DAN, and Interoceptive Networks. This is the same resting-state activity that has been observed in meditators (Brewer et al., 2011; Devaney et al., 2021).

A note on memory, the DMN, and the negativity bias

Memory likely evolved to help us remember threats and prevent them in the future. The brain is wired to better remember more negatively skewed facts and events. Neuroscientist Alex Korb explains this well in his book The Upward Spiral. So let’s make sure we don’t just associate the Default Mode Network with its role in rumination.

Direct evidence: the DMN is needed for creativity

Thanks to a group highly committed to the science of creativity, we now have profound and conclusive evidence that the Default Mode Network has a causal role in creativity. In other words: we have direct evidence that the DMN is needed for creativity.

This generous group of patients volunteered to participate in a study of creativity while undergoing a very invasive planning procedure for brain surgery. They participated in creative tasks (similar to the AUT used in the student study above) while researchers collected data from electrodes temporarily implanted in their brains. And if that wasn’t enough, they also willingly allowed researchers to use those electrodes to disrupt activity in the DMN — and as predicted, creativity was reduced. The impaired creativity from the stimulation proved that the DMN isn’t just associated with creative thinking; it plays a key causal role in it (Bartoli et al., 2024).

Creativity, inflammation, and brain age

Creative pursuits have also been shown to reduce inflammatory and stress signals (ROS) and to promote stress resilience (Stuckey & Nobel, 2010) — in part by increasing molecules that counter IL-6 and ROS, such as reduced glutathione (GSH).

Increases in IL-6, in turn, predict increased DMN engagement (Marsland et al., 2017) — making a tie between inflammation and a loss of mental flexibility. High levels of IL-6 and ROS make a person inherently more reactive and socially isolated. This can be a protective mechanism for when a person needs to be more vigilant, or it can simply signal that it is time to rest.

Oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction have been linked to brain age — but not all brains age at the same rate. A recent international study developed a measure of brain age based on EEG data from over a thousand people (Coronel-Oliveros et al., 2025). The brain clocks revealed greater brain efficiency and neuronal coupling in those whose creativity appeared to slow brain aging. Creative professionals’ brains looked younger, and the youthfulness scaled with the level of creative achievement.

Stressful neural patterns and emotional dysregulation lead to decreased mental flexibility and increased chemical stress — and this study suggests the opposite is also true.

Creativity reduces the negative aspects of the DMN, retraining the brain toward more mPFC-engaged, amygdala-down-regulated activity. It does this in part by keeping DMN mind-wandering more curiosity-driven and flexible, and by easing the switching between mental states.