The Roots of Creativity

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a piece about how the studying of brain injuries is leading to a greater understanding of the roots of creativity.

From the story...

Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says that while brain injuries and disease usually hamper the production of art, the exceptions could be revealing. "Sometimes," he says, "the great artist can give us insight into the process because they have distilled it into a more extreme version."

Using a technique called fMRI, or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, scientists can measure changes in the brain while a person engages in creating art or any form of mental activity. The technique was invented in the mid-1990s, but "it's only in the last few years that it has taken off," Chatterjee says.

So it is an infant science with anecdotal information preceding scientific studies and questions far outnumbering answers.

But the implications are vast. Unlocking the secrets of creativity, scientists say, could result in everything from improvements in helping stroke victims recover to developing new teaching methods.

To take an example that might seem unlikely, Chatterjee cites a situation in which creativity can be the key to survival: Army Special Forces soldiers dropped behind enemy lines and needing to improvise to survive.

"People are creative in different ways," says Chatterjee, himself a serious photographer. "For example, the kind of creativity that operates in the visual arts might be different from the creativity that operates in mathematics. We are at the beginning of understanding the physiology of why certain sensations give us pleasure and the neural underpinnings of aesthetic experiences.

"There are two ways to approach this," he adds. "What is the brain teaching us about creativity and what is creativity teaching us about the brain?"