Investigation of Creative Insight and Improvisational Expression by Noninvasive Brain Stimulation

The Exci-tDCS project seeks to expand scientific horizons on the neural basis of creative thought. The ExCITe seed grant has allowed the Creativity Research Laboratory to expand our studies on creativity and insight to one the most real-world expressions of human creativity: musical improvisation.

We are interested in how creative improvisation can be affected - and even enhanced - by a new form of brain stimulation, called transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS). In tDCS, a safe and mild amount of electric current is applied to the scalp and travels into the cortex, changing the way neurons fire in that region. Instead of measuring brain activity while people do different tasks, tDCS lets us directly encourage or inhibit activity in different regions of the brain - and study how people's behavior changes as a result. This is an especially useful technique for studying very complex behavior where each performance is unique, like musical improvisation.

In this study, jazz pianists improvise while being exposed to tDCS targeting frontal brain areas which support self-monitoring and the “inner critic” of self-awareness. These brain areas are associated with creativity, creative problem solving and insight across domains. By modulating these areas, we are attempting to influence the choices an improviser makes - for instance, whether musicians choose to "play it safe" and use habitual responses or spontaneously create novel solos, a more “risk taking” behavior. Experts with years of jazz teaching experience will rate the improvisations on a number of factors, providing expert evaluation of the performances and the influence of brain stimulation.

Meanwhile, the improvisers will undergo a battery of psychological tests to give insight into the effects of individual personality and temperament on improvisation and tDCS - after all, music is personal! The Exci-tDCS project also tests the musicians on a range of cognitive tasks to assess the effects of tDCS on verbal creativity and strength of "cognitive inhibition", or ability to inhibit an automatic response. We will also examine the relationship between the effects of tDCS on musical and verbal tasks.

Brain stimulation has an excellent safety record and is increasingly popular as a treatment for aphasia, depression, and other clinical conditions. In the future, the present research may help to advance a science that can enhance normal cognition. Nothing substitutes for practicing - but tDCS could, eventually, be able to assist in areas like reinforcing creative strategies during training and improving the speed and effectiveness of practice.

The Exci-tDCS project begins testing improvisers this month and will continue throughout the spring term. Our setup includes an 88-key semi-weighted MIDI controller, flat response headphones and the MAGSTIM tDCS DC-stimulator. Testing is ongoing at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Roy Hamilton MD. MS., director of the Laboratory for Cognitive and Neural Stimulation. The Exci-tDCS project is run by David Rosen and Brian Erickson, Ph.D. candidates in the Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at Drexel University, and is advised by ACBS program director, John Kounios, Ph.D