The Role of Posterior Parietal Brain Regions in Creative Divergent Thinking by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)

Abstract

Creativity is defined as producing original and valuable ideas. Cognitive and neuroscience studies have investigated nonverbal and neural underpinnings of creativity through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In the current experiment the study included 40 students of faculty of psychology from the University of Tehran. Participants were randomly assigned to either experimental or sham groups by accessible sampling. Descriptive statistical analysis like frequency, frequency percentage, average, standard deviation, variance, Pierson correlation and inferential statistic like variance analysis of multiple variables were conducted. The results show that left cathode-right anodal tDCS stimulation of posterior parietal cortex (PPC; P3-P4 based on 10-20 international system) had a significant effect on within and between subject scores of FPT in the experimental group in comparison with the sham group. Findings of current study imply that PPC has a role in neural underpinnings and enhancement of creativity.

Keywords

• creativity
• divergent thinking
• brain stimulation
• transcranial direct current stimulation (tdcs)