Neumann Nicola, Domin Martin, Erhard Katharina, Lotze Martin
Institute of Diagnostic Radiology and Neuroradiology, Functional Imaging Unit, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2018 May 18. doi: 10.1111/ejn.13952.
Continuous practice modulates those features of brain anatomy specifically associated with requirements of the respective training task. This study aimed to highlight brain structural changes going along with long-term experience in creative writing. To this end, we investigated the grey matter volume of 23 expert writers with voxel-based morphometry and compared it to 28 matched nonexpert controls. Expert writers had higher grey matter volume in the right superior frontal and middle frontal gyri (BA 9,10) as well as left middle frontal gyrus (BA 9, 10, 46), the bilateral medial dorsal nuclei of the thalamus and left posterior cerebellum. A regression analysis confirmed the association of enhanced grey matter volume in the right superior frontal gyrus (BA 10) with practice index of writing. In region-of-interest based regression analyses, we found associations of grey matter volume in the right Broca's analogue (BA 44) and right primary visual cortex (BA 17) with creativity ratings of the texts written during scanning, but not with a standardised verbal creativity test. Creative writing thus seems to be strongly connected to a prefronto-thalamic-cerebellar network that supports the continuous generation, organisation and revision of ideas that is necessary to write literary texts.
持续练习会调节大脑解剖结构中与各自训练任务要求特别相关的那些特征。本研究旨在突出与长期创意写作经验相关的大脑结构变化。为此，我们采用基于体素的形态测量法研究了23名专业作家的灰质体积，并将其与28名匹配的非专业对照者进行比较。专业作家在右侧额上回和额中回（BA 9、10）以及左侧额中回（BA 9、10、46）、双侧丘脑内侧背核和左侧小脑后叶有更高的灰质体积。回归分析证实了右侧额上回（BA 10）灰质体积增加与写作练习指数之间的关联。在基于感兴趣区域的回归分析中，我们发现右侧布洛卡区类似物（BA 44）和右侧初级视觉皮层（BA 17）的灰质体积与扫描期间所写文本的创造力评分相关，但与标准化语言创造力测试无关。因此，创意写作似乎与前额叶 - 丘脑 - 小脑网络紧密相连，该网络支持创作文学文本所需的想法的持续产生、组织和修改。
