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. 2018 Jul 27;56(2):86-91.
doi: 10.29399/npa.23203. eCollection 2019 Jun.

Prefrontal Activity Measured by Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy During Divergent and Convergent Thinking in Bipolar Disorder

Yasemin Hoşgören Alici  1 , Halise Devrimci Özgüven  1 , Emre Kale  2 , Isıl Yenihayat  3 , Bora Baskak  3
Affiliations

Prefrontal Activity Measured by Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy During Divergent and Convergent Thinking in Bipolar Disorder

Yasemin Hoşgören Alici et al. Noro Psikiyatr Ars. .

Abstract

Introduction: Biographical research as well as some controlled studies point out to a relationship between bipolar disorder (BD) and creativity. Neurobiological underpinnings of this relationship are unclear. Although there is no consensus on the definition of creativity, Alternative uses Test (AuT) and Remote Association Test (RAT) are frequently used to measure convergent and divergent creativity. We aimed to examine prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during the RAT and AuT tests in subjects with BD.

Methods: We measured PFC activity in subjects with remitted BD (N=31) and healthy control subjects (N=27) with fNIRS during divergent and convergent thinking tasks (AuT and RAT respectively). We were particularly interested in the antero-posterior dissociation of the activity within the PFC according to the two task domains.

Results: We found that the index subjects displayed lower performance than healthy controls during the AuT and the RAT. AuT and RAT were associated with different activities in the two groups. Anterior PFC (aPFC) activity was higher than posterior PFC (pPFC) activity during the RAT in the index group, and during the AuT in the control group. aPFC activity was negatively correlated with the RAT performance in the index group.

Conclusion: Higher activity in the aPFC may be the functional neuro-anatomical correlate of low convergent creativity performance in BD.

Keywords: Creativity; bipolar disorder; functional near infrared spectroscopy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Position of the measurement channels on the scalp according to the international 10-20 electroencephalography system.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The AUT Activation Task
Figure 3
Figure 3
The RAT activation task
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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