Abstract #1739

Enhancing Creativity and Insight using fMRI Neurofeedback

Wenjing Yan¹, Dustin Scheinost², Alan Snyder³, and Gopikrishna Deshpande^1,4,5

¹AU MRI Research Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States, ²Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States, ³Centre for the Mind, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, Sydney, Australia, ⁴Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States, ⁵Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium, Auburn University and University of Alabama Birmingham, Auburn, AL, United States

Insight problem-solving is not deduced logically and the solution is typically very hard to get (probability of success is approximately 0%) and requires “out of the box” thinking. Using tDCS, Chi et al demonstrated that increasing the excitability of the right anterior temporal lobe (rATL) mitigated cognitive biases and enabled surprisingly large number of people to solve insight problems such as the nine-dot puzzle. Here we test this hypothesis using fMRI-based real-time neurofeedback. We show that 44% of subjects who were able to successfully up-regulate activity in their rATL using neurofeedback, solved the puzzle.

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