Inventions and innovations surround us. They range from the mundane—clever kitchen gadgets, 2-year-olds’ drawings, comedians’ one-liners—to soaring, majestic works of art, literature, music, science, and mathematics. Whatever form they take, they reflect one human trait: creativity.
We all recognize creativity when we see it—it often leads to something that is novel and useful, which challenges existing ideas and provide new insights. But what causes it? And why are some people more creative than others?
Neuroscience, the study of the brain, may have some answers. One theory ties creativity to the interplay of two brain regions: the temporal lobe, which controls speech, hearing, and vision; and the frontal lobe, which is associated with memory, pleasure, and planning. According to this theory, ideas originate in the frontal lobe. Studies show that stimulating the neurons in this brain region enhances creativity. Researchers do this using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in which an electric current is passed through a coil of insulated wire placed against the head. TMS could induce an epileptic seizure, though, so don't try it at home!
The temporal lobe, on the other hand, seems to “edit” the ideas coming from the frontal lobe, killing the ones it judges to be poor. Without the temporal lobe, we might generate too many ideas, and have no way to tell the good ones from the bad. For instance, any sentence we speak might come out as gibberish. However, the temporal lobe comes at a price. Like an overly-strict schoolteacher who keeps dismissing creative suggestions from her students, this brain region could sometimes suppress some really good ideas.
The brain chemical dopamine, associated with energy, excitement, and drive, also seems to play a role. People with higher levels of dopamine tend to have higher motivation to generate ideas. These ideas don’t have to be all good ones—since so many of them are generated, some good ones often emerge! Can dopamine levels be increased? Yes, using certain drugs or stimulating some brain regions using implated electrodes. However, these techniques are risky, and are used only to treat brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease.
Another school of thought believes that creative people may simply use more of their brains more effectively. One study compares what happens when normal and mathematically gifted teenagers solved a math problem. It turned out that the gifted kids made much greater use of some parts of the brain such as the parietal lobes, which are involved in processing sensory information.
Recent advances in neuroscience such as brain imaging are shedding new light on creativity, but so far a clear understanding of the phenomenon is lacking. Perhaps it will continue to baffle us. The creative force behind the inventions and innovations that enrich our lives—Taj Mahal, the Ajanta and Ellora paintings, the concept of zero, and much else—may forever remain a mystery.
S. Ramanujan, arguably the most naturally gifted mathematician of all time, credited his boundless creative insights to his family deity Namagiri, an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Physics Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman drew his inspiration from nature. Other scientists credit hard work, interactions with others, dreams, drugs, or just plain luck.
Creativity and brain disorders such as epilepsy and mania share many characteristics, and sometimes go hand-in-hand. The writer Ernest Hemingway, the painter Vincent Van Gogh, and the mathematician Georg Cantor are among the many highly creative people who suffered from mental illness. Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant minds of all time, became so eccentric in his old age that he would be considered nearly insane by modern standards!