Intrinsic default-executive coupling of the creative aging brain

Abstract

Creativity refers to the ability to generate novel associations and has been linked to better problem-solving and real-world functional abilities. In younger adults, creative cognition has been associated with functional connectivity among brain networks implicated in executive control [fronto-parietal network (FPN) and salience network (SN)] and associative or elaborative processing default network (DN). Here, we investigate whether creativity is associated with the intrinsic network architecture of the brain and how these associations may differ for younger and older adults. Young (mean age: 24.76, n = 22) and older (mean age: 70.03, n = 44) adults underwent multi-echo functional magnetic resonance image scanning at rest and completed a divergent-thinking task to assess creative cognition outside the scanner. Divergent thinking in older adults, compared to young adults, was associated with functional connectivity between the default and both executive control networks (FPN and SN) as well as more widespread default-executive coupling. Finally, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex appears to be a critical node involved in within- and between-network connectivity associated with creative cognition in older adulthood. Patterns of intrinsic network coupling revealed here suggest a putative neural mechanism underlying a greater role for mnemonic processes in creative cognition in older adulthood.

Keywords: aging; creativity; default mode network; executive function.

Fig. 1

RSFC correlating with divergent-thinking ability in young adults after controlling for scanner site and personality (openness to experience). Color-coded nodes include regions from the DN, FPN and SN. The color of the edges denotes the direction of correlation between functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability. Only positive correlations between ROI-to-ROI functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability survived a seed-level false discovery rate (FDR) correction at an alpha level of 0.05. Results correspond to findings in Table 1.

Fig. 2

RSFC correlated with divergent-thinking ability in older adults after controlling for scanner site and personality (openness to experience). Color-coded nodes include regions from the DN, FPN and SN. The color of the edges denotes the direction of correlation between functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability. Only positive correlations between ROI-to-ROI functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability survived a seed-level FDR correction at an alpha level of 0.05. Results correspond to findings in Table 2.

Fig. 3

Overlap between RSFC correlated with divergent-thinking ability across young and older adults after controlling for scanner site and personality (openness to experience). Color-coded nodes include regions from the DN, FPN and SN. The color of the edges denotes the direction of correlation between functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability. Only positive correlations between ROI-to-ROI functional connectivity and divergent-thinking ability survived a seed-level FDR correction at an alpha level of 0.05. Connections displayed are corrected a seed-level FDR correction at an alpha level of 0.05. Results correspond to findings in Table 3.

Fig. 4

Group by behavior interaction for intrinsic connectivity correlated with divergent thinking after controlling for scanner site and personality (openness to experience). The figure shows resting-state ROI-to-ROI functional connectivity that correlates with divergent-thinking ability and is significantly different between young and older adults. Color-coded nodes include regions from the DN, FPN and SN. The color of the edges (connections between nodes) indicate the direction of the contrast. Red edges indicate greater connectivity between regions that are associated with divergent thinking in older adults, while blue edges indicate greater connectivity between regions that are associated with divergent thinking in young adults. Results correspond to findings in Table 4.