White matter correlates of creative cognition in a normal cohort

Creative cognition, as measured through divergent thinking (DT), offers insight into one’s ability to generate novel ideas. Relatively little work has been done exploring the relationship between creative idea generation tasks and white matter integrity via fractional anisotropy (FA). Our previous work has shown that higher scores on DT tasks were related to reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) within the left hemisphere anterior thalamic radiation (Jung et al., 2010). However, Takeuchi et al., 2010, found positive correlations with FA and DT tasks in the prefrontal cortex and genu of the corpus callosum. The present study assessed subjects studying or working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM; N ​= ​178) for correlations in white matter FA, as related to a measure of DT. Healthy normal subjects aged (16–32 years, mean age ​= ​22.0 ​± ​3.8; F ​= ​89/178). Three idea generation DT measures were scored by three raters (α ​= ​0.71) using the consensual assessment technique, from which a composite creativity index (CCI) was derived. We found that CCI was inversely related to FA (all p ​