Hur påverkas ens kreativitet av det känslotillstånd man befinner sig i? Samspelet mellan de områden i hjärnan som förknippas med konstnärligt skapande och de områden som förknippas med känslor har inte studerats tidigare, skriver ett amerikanskt forskarlag under ledning av Malinda McPherson, doktorand vid Harvard/MIT. De lät tolv jazzmusiker improvisera utifrån fotografier av ansikten som uttryckte positiva, negativa eller tvetydiga känslor. Musikernas hjärnaktivitet studerades med fMRI-scanner medan de spelade.
Deras studie kan läsas här: Emotional Intent Modulates The Neural Substrates Of Creativity: An fMRI Study of Emotionally Targeted Improvisation in Jazz Musicians
Sammanfattning
Emotion is a primary motivator for creative behaviors, yet the interaction between the neural systems involved in creativity and those involved in emotion has not been studied. In the current study, we addressed this gap by using fMRI to examine piano improvisation in response to emotional cues. We showed twelve professional jazz pianists photographs of an actress representing a positive, negative or ambiguous emotion. Using a non-ferromagnetic thirty-five key keyboard, the pianists improvised music that they felt represented the emotion expressed in the photographs. Here we show that activity in prefrontal and other brain networks involved in creativity is highly modulated by emotional context. Furthermore, emotional intent directly modulated functional connectivity of limbic and paralimbic areas such as the amygdala and insula. These findings suggest that emotion and creativity are tightly linked, and that the neural mechanisms underlying creativity may depend on emotional state.