Leiden University, Cognitive Psychology Unit & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands; Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany; Institute for Sports and Sport Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany.
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2018 Mar;111:72-76. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.01.003. Epub 2018 Jan 8.
Creativity is one of the most important cognitive skills in our complex and fast-changing world. Previous correlative evidence showed that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is involved in divergent but not convergent thinking. In the current study, a placebo/sham-controlled, randomized between-group design was used to test a causal relation between vagus nerve and creativity. We employed transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), a novel non-invasive brain stimulation technique to stimulate afferent fibers of the vagus nerve and speculated to increase GABA levels, in 80 healthy young volunteers. Creative performance was assessed in terms of divergent thinking (Alternate Uses Task) and convergent thinking tasks (Remote Associates Test, Creative Problem Solving Task, Idea Selection Task). Results demonstrate active tVNS, compared to sham stimulation, enhanced divergent thinking. Bayesian analysis reported the data to be inconclusive regarding a possible effect of tVNS on convergent thinking. Therefore, our findings corroborate the idea that the vagus nerve is causally involved in creative performance. Even thought we did not directly measure GABA levels, our results suggest that GABA (likely to be increased in active tVNS condition) supports the ability to select among competing options in high selection demand (divergent thinking) but not in low selection demand (convergent thinking).
创造力是我们这个复杂多变的世界中最重要的认知技能之一。先前的相关证据表明，γ-氨基丁酸（GABA）参与发散思维，但不参与聚合思维。在当前的研究中，我们采用了安慰剂/假刺激对照、随机分组设计，以测试迷走神经与创造力之间的因果关系。我们使用经皮迷走神经刺激（tVNS），这是一种新颖的非侵入性脑刺激技术，刺激迷走神经的传入纤维，并推测可以增加 GABA 水平，对 80 名健康的年轻志愿者进行了研究。创造性表现通过发散思维（替代用途任务）和聚合思维任务（远程联想测验、创造性问题解决任务、创意选择任务）进行评估。结果表明，与假刺激相比，活跃的 tVNS 增强了发散思维。贝叶斯分析报告称，关于 tVNS 对聚合思维可能产生的影响，数据尚无定论。因此，我们的发现证实了迷走神经与创造性表现存在因果关系的观点。尽管我们没有直接测量 GABA 水平，但我们的结果表明，GABA（在活跃的 tVNS 条件下可能增加）支持在高选择需求（发散思维）下而不是在低选择需求（聚合思维）下选择竞争选项的能力。
