牛牛资源

Brain regions which make dopamine, a chemical released during sex, eating and monetary reward, have been linked to the ‘Aha! moment’ of sudden clarity during problem solving.

A team including researchers from 牛牛资源 used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study what happened deep in the brain when people tackled word puzzles that required a 鈥榣eap鈥� of creative insight to solve.

The researchers found that when people solved puzzles with Aha! a deeper part of the brain that generates the mood-enhancing chemical dopamine 鈥榣it up鈥�. They identified the nucleus accumbens as a critical hub linked to this lightbulb moment. The link could help to explain the ecstatic joy that accompanies creative problem solving 鈥� exemplified by the story of Archimedes leaping out of his bath and shouting 鈥淓ureka!鈥� (鈥淚 have found it!鈥�).

Professor Bhattacharya said: 鈥淏y using the state-of-the art functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging we were able to peer deep into the brain and study in detail which areas are active during creative problem solving.

鈥淔or the first time we have shown that the hub of the brain鈥檚 reward system, the nucleus accumbens, 鈥榣it up鈥� with increased activation both when problems were solved and when people reported a strong Aha! experience. The nucleus accumbens is part of a network activated when we experience a pleasure or reward, and dopamine facilitates communication between this network with other brain regions involved with critical functions like emotion, memory and attention. These findings may reflect the sudden 鈥榡ump鈥� to a solution accompanied by a moment of intense relief, ease, or joy.鈥�

The study involved 30 human adult volunteers who were scanned at the Medical University of Vienna. They were asked to solve verbal puzzles such as find a word that is associated with three words (for example 鈥榮tick鈥�, 鈥榬eading鈥�, 鈥榮ervice鈥�, with the solution word that can be linked to all of them: 鈥榣ip鈥�). Inside the scanner, the participants solved 48 such puzzles, and pressed a button as soon as they felt confident about their solution. The participants were asked to report their Aha! experience after each solution.

Professor Bhattacharya said: 鈥淒opamine is a chemical not just for processing reward, it also stimulates goal-driven approach motivation such as curiosity and learning: these findings establish a close link between dopamine, positive mood and creativity. Further, our results provide the neural mechanisms explaining why the solution with an accompanying Aha! experience is more salient, facilitates long-term memory storage and reinforcement. So an Aha! moment is more than just a sensation of pleasure or relief, instead it is a special form of fast retrieval, combination, and encoding process and this is something we hope to investigate in future research.鈥�

 

The research was funded by the European Commission.