Becker Maxi, Sommer Tobias, Cabeza Roberto
Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Psychology, Berlin, Germany.
Duke University, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
Nat Commun. 2025 May 9;16(1):4341. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-59355-4.
The neural mechanisms driving creative problem-solving, including representational change and its relation to memory, still remain largely unknown. We focus on the creative process of insight, wherein rapid knowledge reorganization and integration-termed representational change-yield solutions that evoke suddenness, certainty, positive emotion, and enduring memory. We posit that this process is associated with stronger shifts in activation patterns within brain regions housing solution-relevant information, including the visual cortex for visual problems, alongside regions linked to feelings of emotion, suddenness and subsequent memory. To test this, we collect participants' brain activity while they solve visual insight problems in the MRI. Our findings substantiate these hypotheses, revealing stronger representational changes in visual cortex, coupled with activations in the amygdala and hippocampus-forming an interconnected network. Importantly, representational change and hippocampal effects are positively associated with subsequent memory. This study provides evidence of an integrated insight mechanism influencing memory.
驱动创造性解决问题的神经机制，包括表征变化及其与记忆的关系，在很大程度上仍然未知。我们关注顿悟的创造性过程，在这个过程中，快速的知识重组和整合——即表征变化——产生的解决方案会引发突然性、确定性、积极情绪和持久记忆。我们假设，这个过程与容纳与解决方案相关信息的脑区（包括处理视觉问题的视觉皮层）以及与情感、突然性和后续记忆相关的脑区的激活模式的更强变化有关。为了验证这一点，我们在参与者在核磁共振成像（MRI）中解决视觉顿悟问题时收集他们的大脑活动。我们的研究结果证实了这些假设，揭示了视觉皮层中更强的表征变化，同时杏仁核和海马体也被激活，形成了一个相互连接的网络。重要的是，表征变化和海马体效应与后续记忆呈正相关。这项研究为影响记忆的综合顿悟机制提供了证据。
