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. 2026 Jan 20;14(1):151.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-03593-0.

The white matter of Aha! moments

Carola Salvi  1 , Simone A Luchini  2 , Franco Pestilli  3 , Sandra Hanekamp  3 , Todd Parrish  4   5 , Mark Beeman  6 , Jordan Grafman  7   8
Affiliations

The white matter of Aha! moments

Carola Salvi et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Insights, or "Aha!" moments, are a crucial aspect of idea generation in creative cognition. While functional neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions involved in these insights, their white matter substrate remains unexplored. This study employed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate how white matter microstructure—measured by fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD)—relates to individuals’ tendency to solve Compound Remote Associates problems through insight versus step-by-step analytical reasoning. After controlling for age and gender, left-hemisphere omnibus tests (Stouffer’s Z and FDR) showed significant FA associations for left dorsal tracts composites (i.e., Arcuate Fasciculus, Posterior Arcuate Fasciculus, and Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus III), while MD tracts composites trended but were not FDR-significant (p= 0.032 q= 0.081). Findings point to a left-lateralized dorsal substrate of insight. These findings suggest that insight may benefit from more diffuse connectivity patterns, allowing for broader semantic activation and cognitive flexibility. Our study provides novel evidence for distinct structural connectivity patterns associated with different idea-generation approaches, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the neural architecture supporting creative cognition.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-025-03593-0.

Keywords: Creativity; Diffusion tensor imaging; Insight; Problem solving; White matter microstructure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval was obtained from the Northwestern University Institutional Review Board (IRB #: STU00202210-MOD0009 approved by NU IRB), and informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their inclusion in the study. All participants provided written informed consent prior to participation in the study. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A From left to right: 3D lateral projection of the arcuate fasciculus (Arc) and the left posterior arcuate fasciculus (pArc), and in green overlaid on the semitransparent MNI pial surface. Arc and pArc overlaid in directional color coding on T1-weighted images. B From left to right: 3D lateral projection of the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus III (SLF III) in green overlaid on the semitransparent MNI pial surface. Left and right SLF III in blue overlaid in directional color coding on T1-weighted images. C From left to right: 3D lateral projection of the Inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) overlaid on the semitransparent MNI pial surface. Left and right IFOF overlaid in directional color coding on T1-weighted images. D From left to right: 3D lateral projection of the Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus (ILF) overlaid on the semitransparent MNI pial surface. Left and right ILF overlaid in directional color coding on T1-weighted images. A and B correspond to the Dorsal Composite Stream; A, B, C, and D correspond to the Perisylvian Language Composite Stream. Atlas taken from [100]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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