Creative Thought

Creativity is manifested in many forms, from artistic creation to scientific discovery, to general problem-solving. Our recent work has revealed different activation patterns for creative idea generation vs. evaluation, spanning default mode network structures as well as high-level metacognitive and executive regions, including RLPFC and DLPFC (Ellamil, Dobson, Beeman, and Christoff, 2012). We have expanded upon these ideas in a recent book chapter that explores how metacognition might facilitate spontaneous thought processes to achieve optimal creative and personal outcomes (Fox and Christoff, 2014). In an additional book chapter, we have also explored potential neural and psychological relationships between psychedelic experience and creativity (Fox, Girn, Parro, and Christoff 2016).