Cortical morphology of visual creativity

Background and objective: The volume of cortical tissue devoted to a function often influences the quality of a person's ability to perform that function. Up to now only white matter correlates of creativity have been reported, and we wanted to learn if the creative visuospatial performance on the figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is associated with measurements of cerebral gray matter volume in the regions of the brain that are thought to be important in divergent reasoning and visuospatial processing. Methods: Eighteen healthy college educated men (mean age = 40.78; 15 right-handers) were recruited (via advertisement) as participants. High-resolution MRI scans were acquired on a 1.5T MRI scanner. Voxel-based morphometry regression analyses of TTCT to cortical volume were restrained within the anatomic regions identified. Results: One significant positive focus of association with TTCT emerged within the right parietal lobe gray matter (MNI coordinates: 44, -24, 63; 276 voxels). Conclusions: Based on theories of parietal lobe function and the requirements of the TTCT, the area observed may be related due to its dominant role in global aspects of attention and visuospatial processing including the capacity for manipulating spatial representations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.