“That creativity and psychopathology are somehow linked remains a popular but controversial idea in neuroscience research. brain regions implicated in both psychosis-proneness and creative cognition include frontal projection zones and association fibers. in normal subjects, we have previously demonstrated that a composite measure of divergent thinking (dt) ability exhibited significant inverse relationships in frontal lobe areas with both cortical thickness and metabolite concentration of n-acetyl-aspartate (naa). these findings support the idea that creativity may reside upon a continuum with psychopathology. here we examine whether white matter integrity, assessed by fractional anisotropy (fa), is related to two measures of creativity (divergent thinking and openness to experience). based on previous findings, we hypothesize inverse correlations within fronto-striatal circuits. seventy-two healthy, young adult (18-29 years) subjects were scanned on a 3 tesla scanner with diffusion tensor imaging. dt measures were scored by four raters (alpha = .81) using the consensual assessment technique, from which a composite creativity index (cci) was derived. we found that the cci was significantly inversely related to fa within the left inferior frontal white matter (t = 5.36, p = .01), and openness was inversely related to fa within the right inferior frontal white matter (t = 4.61, p = .04). these findings demonstrate an apparent overlap in specific white matter architecture underlying the normal variance of divergent thinking, openness, and psychotic-spectrum traits, consistent with the idea of a continuum.”

“This study presents the first behavioral genetic investigation of the relationships between trait emotional intelligence (trait ei or trait emotional self-efficacy) and the dark triad traits of narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. in line with trait ei theory, the construct correlated positively with narcissism, but negatively with the other two traits. generally, the correlations were consistent across the 4 factors and 15 facets of the construct. cholesky decomposition analysis revealed that the phenotypic associations were primarily due to correlated genetic factors and secondarily due to correlated nonshared environmental factors, with shared environmental factors being nonsignificant in all cases. results are discussed from the perspective of trait ei theory with particular reference to the issue of adaptive value.”

“The article deals with the scientific approaches towards a creative society by defining its terms in such different sciences and their branches as aesthetics and philosophy, sociology and communication, economics and management. the author shows the development and etymology of the term “creation{’’} in antique greek and roman cultures. aesthetics presupposes an individual, artistic creation, the different sorts of creation, and creative activity; philosophy presupposes an existential creation, a creative identity, creative ethos, and creative regions. sociology presupposes society as an environment of creation, a knowledge (information) society, a postmodern society, a post-industrial society, a mediated society, a sociology of creation, a creative index, social and creative capital, a human clime, and a creative geography. the context of economy and management allows one to speak about a creative economy, creative industries, a creative class, and a management of creativity. according to the author, these disjunctions are provisory because the terms migrate from one science to another one and are overgrown with different semantic varnishes.”

“Disentangling the effects of weak ties on creativity, the present study separated, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of the size and strength of actors’ idea networks and examined their joint impact while simultaneously considering the separate, moderating role of network diversity. i hypothesized that idea networks of optimal size and weak strength were more likely to boost creativity when they afforded actors access to a wide range of different social circles. in addition, i examined whether the joint effects of network size, strength, and diversity on creativity were further qualified by the openness to experience personality dimension. as expected, results indicated that actors were most creative when they maintained idea networks of optimal size, weak strength, and high diversity and when they scored high on the openness dimension. the implications of these results are discussed.”

“This multitrait multimethod twin study examined the structure and sources of individual differences in creativity. according to different theoretical and metrological perspectives, as well as suggestions based on previous research, we expected 2 aspects of individual differences, which can be described as perceived creativity and creative test performance. we hypothesized that perceived creativity, reflecting typical creative thinking and behavior, should be linked to specific personality traits, whereas test creativity, reflecting maximum task-related creative performance, should show specific associations with cognitive abilities. moreover, we tested whether genetic variance in intelligence and personality traits account for the genetic component of creativity. multiple-rater and multimethod data (self- and peer reports, observer ratings, and test scores) from 2 german twin studies—the bielefeld longitudinal study of adult twins and the german observational study of adult twins—were analyzed. confirmatory factor analyses yielded the expected 2 correlated aspects of creativity. perceived creativity showed links to openness to experience and extraversion, whereas tested figural creativity was associated with intelligence and also with openness. multivariate behavioral genetic analyses indicated that the herita- bility of tested figural creativity could be accounted for by the genetic component of intelligence and openness, whereas a substantial genetic component in perceived creativity could not be explained. a primary source of individual differences in creativity was due to environmental influences, even after controlling for random error and method variance. the findings are discussed in terms of the multifaceted nature and construct validity of creativity as an individual characteristic.”

“Recent studies in sleep and dreaming have described an activation of emotional and reward systems, as well as the processing of internal information during these states. specifically, increased activity in the amygdala and across mesolimbic dopaminergic regions during rem sleep is likely to promote the consolidation of memory traces with high emotional/motivational value. moreover, coordinated hippocampal-striatal replay during nrem sleep may contribute to the selective strengthening of memories for important events. in this review, we suggest that, via the activation of emotional/motivational circuits, sleep and dreaming may offer a neurobehavioral substrate for the offline reprocessing of emotions, associative learning, and exploratory behaviors, resulting in improved memory organization, waking emotion regulation, social skills, and creativity. dysregulation of such motivational/emotional processes due to sleep disturbances (e.g., insomnia, sleep deprivation) would predispose to reward-related disorders, such as mood disorders, increased risk-taking and compulsive behaviors, and may have major health implications, especially in vulnerable populations.”

“Recent studies in sleep and dreaming have described an activation of emotional and reward systems, as well as the processing of internal information during these states. specifically, increased activity in the amygdala and across mesolimbic dopaminergic regions during rem sleep is likely to promote the consolidation of memory traces with high emotional/motivational value. moreover, coordinated hippocampal-striatal replay during nrem sleep may contribute to the selective strengthening of memories for important events. in this review, we suggest that, via the activation of emotional/motivational circuits, sleep and dreaming may offer a neurobehavioral substrate for the offline reprocessing of emotions, associative learning, and exploratory behaviors, resulting in improved memory organization, waking emotion regulation, social skills, and creativity. dysregulation of such motivational/emotional processes due to sleep disturbances (e.g., insomnia, sleep deprivation) would predispose to reward-related disorders, such as mood disorders, increased risk-taking and compulsive behaviors, and may have major health implications, especially in vulnerable populations.”

“The hypothesized role of rapid eye movement (rem) sleep, which is rich in dreams, in the formation of new associations, has remained anecdotal. we examined the role of rem on creative problem solving, with the remote associates test (rat). using a nap paradigm, we manipulated various conditions of prior exposure to elements of a creative problem. compared with quiet rest and non-rem sleep, rem enhanced the formation of associative networks and the integration of unassociated information. furthermore, these rem sleep benefits were not the result of an improved memory for the primed items. this study shows that compared with quiet rest and non-rem sleep, rem enhances the integration of unassociated information for creative problem solving, a process, we hypothesize, that is facilitated by cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation during rem sleep.”

“In this study, creative thinking from quadruple thinking (critical, creative, caring and hopeful thinking ways) is discussed. it is given the etymology of the term, history of creativity thought, its dimensions and the supporting thinking ways. besides, the creative thinking is compared with uncreative thinking. at last, the quadruple thinking is shown in the relationships between creative thinking and other thinking ways (critical, caring and hopeful). © 2009 published by elsevier ltd.”

“Personality plays an important role in the creative process. the search for the ‘creative personality’ has a long history, and psychologists have converged on the personality dimension of openness/intellect as the most important trait predictor of creative achievement. high levels of openness/intellect are associated with an increased tendency toward cognitive exploration, supported by divergent thinking, implicit learning, working memory, and decreased latent inhibition. collectively, variation in these cognitive processes helps to explain the link between personality and creativity.”

“What are creative people like? openness to experience is important to creativity, but little is known about plasticity, the higher-order factor that subsumes openness. college students (n = 189) completed measures of the big five and measures of creative cognition (fluency and quality of divergent thinking), everyday creative behaviors, creative achievement, and self-rated creativity. latent variable models found broad effects of openness to experience and few effects of the other four domains. at the higher-order level, plasticity predicted higher scores on nearly all of the facets of creativity, and stability had several significant effects. for some creativity measures, plasticity and stability had opposing effects. tests of latent interactions found no significant effects: plasticity and stability predict creatively independently, not jointly. © 2009 elsevier inc. all rights reserved.”

“The big five personality dimension openness/intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. little is known, however, regarding the discriminant validity of its two aspects-openness to experience (reflecting cognitive engagement with perception, fantasy, aesthetics, and emotions) and intellect (reflecting cognitive engagement with abstract and semantic information, primarily through reasoning)-in relation to creativity. in four demographically diverse samples totaling 1,035 participants, we investigated the independent predictive validity of openness and intellect by assessing the relations among cognitive ability, divergent thinking, personality, and creative achievement across the arts and sciences. we confirmed the hypothesis that whereas openness predicts creative achievement in the arts, intellect predicts creative achievement in the sciences. inclusion of performance measures of general cognitive ability and divergent thinking indicated that the relation of intellect to scientific creativity may be due at least in part to these abilities. lastly, we found that extraversion additionally predicted creative achievement in the arts, independently of openness. results are discussed in the context of dual-process theory.”

“Openness to experience is best understood as a multifaceted personality trait that covers a wide range of behavioral inclinations, attitudes, and interests associated with seeking for novelty and variety. openness and its narrow traits (e.g., intellect, culture) are meaningfully linked to intelligence, academic achievement, creativity, social/political attitudes, religiosity/spirituality, subjective and psychological well-being, and work outcomes, which are discussed in detail.”

“Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the big five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional and fantasy richness, and unconventionality. likewise, creative achievement is a broad construct, comprising creativity across the arts and sciences. the aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between openness to experience and creative achievement. toward this aim, i factor analyzed a battery of tests of cognitive ability, working memory, intellect, openness, affect, and intuition among a sample of english sixth form students (n = 146). four factors were revealed: explicit cognitive ability, intellectual engagement, affective engagement, and aesthetic engagement. in line with dual-process theory, each of these four factors showed differential relations with personality, impulsivity, and creative achievement. affective engagement and aesthetic engagement were associated with creative achievement in the arts, whereas explicit cognitive ability and intellectual engagement were associated with creative achievement in the sciences. the results suggest that the intellectual and openness aspects of the broader openness to experience personality domain are related to different modes of information processing and predict different forms of creative achievement. (psycinfo database record (c) 2013 apa, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)”

“A large body of evidence, including longitudinal analyses of personality change, suggests that core personality traits are predominantly stable after age 30. to our knowledge, no study has demonstrated changes in personality in healthy adults after an experimentally manipulated discrete event. intriguingly, double-blind controlled studies have shown that the classic hallucinogen psilocybin occasions personally and spiritually significant mystical experiences that predict long-term changes in behaviors, attitudes and values. in the present report we assessed the effect of psilocybin on changes in the five broad domains of personality – neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. consistent with participant claims of hallucinogen-occasioned increases in aesthetic appreciation, imagination, and creativity, we found significant increases in openness following a high-dose psilocybin session. in participants who had mystical experiences during their psilocybin session, openness remained significantly higher than baseline more than 1 year after the session. the findings suggest a specific role for psilocybin and mystical-type experiences in adult personality change.”

“Intelligence and creativity are known to be correlated constructs suggesting that they share a common cognitive basis. the present study assessed three specific executive abilities – updating, shifting, and inhibition – and examined their common and differential relations to fluid intelligence and creativity (i.e., divergent thinking ability) within a latent variable model approach. additionally, it was tested whether the correlation of fluid intelligence and creativity can be explained by a common executive involvement. as expected, fluid intelligence was strongly predicted by updating, but not by shifting or inhibition. creativity was predicted by updating and inhibition, but not by shifting. moreover, updating (and the personality factor openness) was found to explain a relevant part of the shared variance between intelligence and creativity. the findings provide direct support for the executive involvement in creative thought and shed further light on the functional relationship between intelligence and creativity. © 2014.”

“Creative thought relies on the reorganisation of existing knowledge. sleep is known to be important for creative thinking, but there is a debate about which sleep stage is most relevant, and why. we address this issue by proposing that rapid eye movement sleep, or ‘rem’ and non-rem sleep facilitate creativity in different ways. memory replay mechanisms in non-rem can abstract rules from corpuses of learned information, while replay in rem may promote novel associations. we propose that the iterative interleaving of rem and non-rem across a night boosts the formation of complex knowledge frameworks, and allows these frameworks to be restructured, thus facilitating creative thought. we outline a hypothetical computational model which will allow explicit testing of these hypotheses.”

“This study examined relations between employee creativity and emotional and informational support provided by three sources: individuals in the primary work unit, other work-related individuals and non-work-related individuals. i also examined whether openness to experience moderated these relations. results showed significant relations between creativity and emotional support from primary unit and other work- related individuals, and informational support from primary unit and non-work-related individuals. emotional support from non-work-related individuals had a stronger relation to creativity for employees low on openness to experience than for those high on openness. implications of these results for organizational research and practice are discussed.”

“BACKGROUND: symmetric dimethylarginine (sdma) has been shown to be an accurate and precise biomarker for calculating estimated glomerular filtration rate (gfr) in humans, as well as a more sensitive biomarker than serum creatinine concentration (scr) for assessing renal dysfunction.nnobjectives: the purpose of this retrospective study was to report on the utility of measuring serum sdma concentrations in cats for detection of chronic kidney disease (ckd) before diagnosis by conventional measurement of scr.nnanimals: chronic kidney disease cats (n = 21) included those persistently azotemic for ≥3 months (n = 15), nonazotemic cats with gfr >30% decreased from median gfr of normal cats (n = 4), and nonazotemic cats with calcium oxalate kidney stones (n = 2). healthy geriatric cats (n = 21) were selected from the same colony.nnmethods: symmetric dimethylarginine concentrations (liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy) and scr (enzymatic colorimetry) were determined retrospectively from historical data or banked serum samples in azotemic cats or at the time gfr (iohexol clearance) was measured in nonazotemic cats.nnresults: serum sdma (r = -0.79) and scr (r = -0.77) concentrations were significantly correlated to gfr (both p < .0001). symmetric dimethylarginine became increased before scr in 17/21 cats (mean, 17.0 months; range, 1.5-48 months). serum sdma had higher sensitivity (100%) compared with scr (17%), but lower specificity (91% versus 100%) and positive predictive value (86% versus 100%).nnconclusion and clinical importance: using serum sdma as a biomarker for ckd allows earlier detection of ckd in cats compared with scr, which may be desirable for initiating renoprotective interventions that slow progression of ckd.”

“Test scores of divergent thinking obtained between 1959 and 1972 were correlated with a variety of personality measures administered since 1980. in this sample of 268 men, divergent thinking was consistently associated with self-reports and ratings of openness to experience, but not with neuroti-cism, extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness. both divergent thinking and openness were also modestly correlated with cough’s (1979) empirically derived creative personality scale. several other personality variables mentioned in the literature were also examined; those that were associ-ated with divergent thinking were also generally correlated with openness. these data suggest that creativity is particularly related to the personality domain of openness to experience.”

“This study examined the relations among the five-factor model of personality, creative ability, and creative accomplishments. seventy-five subjects completed measures of verbal creative ability and openness to experience and listed their creative accomplishments. openness to experience and extraversion were positively correlated with creative ability, controlling for measures of academic ability. agreeableness was negatively correlated with creative accomplishments. both verbal creativity and openness had significant positive correlations with creative accomplishments. hierarchical regression analyses indicated that these relations were qualified by significant creative ability by openness and creative ability by conscientiousness interactions. at high levels of openness, creative ability shared a positive linear relation with accomplishments. individuals high in creative ability but low on openness to experience reported relatively few creative accomplishments. in contrast, conscientiousness was related to heightened accomplishments by individuals low in creative talent. results are interpreted as illustrating the interplay of abilities and traits in promoting creative behavior. © 1996 academic press, inc.”

“Creativity is a topic of ever-increasing interest, given its importance and applicability to literally every field. personality traits have been frequently and predictably related to creative achievement. amabile (1983) pointed out that individuals may have certain traits and abilities that are favorable for creativity, but whether these will actually result in achieving creative results depends on their intrinsic motivation. additionally, under certain circumstances extrinsic motivation has been found to have a positive effect on creativity. we hypothesized a conceptual model and tested the mediating and moderating role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation respectively in the relationship between 3 personality traits (openness to experience, self-efficacy, and perseverance) and creativity. this study, conducted in a university setting, found support for the potential mediating role of intrinsic motivation between creativity/openness to experience as intrinsic motivation partially mediated this relationship. self-efficacy was closely related to creativity, with intrinsic motivation completely mediating this relationship. extrinsic motivation moderated the relationship between self-efficacy/creativity and perseverance/creativity and had a negative association with creativity.”

“Brain diseases and their treatment may help or hurt creativity in ways that shape quality of life. increased creative drive is associated with bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, temporal lobe epilepsy, frontotemporal dementia, parkinson disease treatments, and autism. creativity depends on goal-driven approach motivation from midbrain dopaminergic systems. fear-driven avoidance motivation is of less aid to creativity. when serotonin and norepinephrine lower motivation and flexible behaviour, they can inhibit creativity. hemispheric lateralization and frontotemporal connections must interact to create new ideas and conceptual schemes. the right brain and temporal lobe contribute skill in novelty detection, while the left brain and frontal lobe foster approach motivation and more easily generate new patterns of action from the novel perceptions. genes and phenotypes that increase plasticity and creativity in tolerant environments with relaxed selection pressure may confer risk in rigorous environments. few papers substantively address this important but fraught topic. antidepressants (ads) that inhibit fear-driven motivation, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, sometimes inhibit goal-oriented motivation as well. ads that boost goal-directed motivation, such as bupropion, may remediate this effect. benzodiazepines and alcohol may be counterproductive. although dopaminergic agonists sometimes stimulate creativity, their doing so may inappropriately disinhibit behaviour. dopamine antagonists may suppress creative motivation; lithium and anticonvulsant mood stabilizers may do so less. physical exercise and rem sleep may help creativity. art therapy and psychotherapy are not well studied. preserving creative motivation can help creativity and other aspects of well-being in all patients, not just artists or researchers.”

“Professionally significant enhancement of music and dance performance and mood has followed training with an eeg-neurofeedback protocol which increases the ratio of theta to alpha waves using auditory feedback with eyes closed. while originally the protocol was designed to induce hypnogogia, a state historically associated with creativity, the outcome was psychological integration, while subsequent applications focusing on raising the theta–alpha ratio, reduced depression and anxiety in alcoholism and resolved post traumatic stress syndrome (ptsd). in optimal performance studies we confirmed associations with creativity in musical performance, but effects also included technique and communication. we extended efficacy to dance and social anxiety. diversity of outcome has a counterpart in wide ranging associations between theta oscillations and behaviour in cognitive and affective neuroscience: in animals with sensory-motor activity in exploration, effort, working memory, learning, retention and rem sleep; in man with meditative concentration, reduced anxiety and sympathetic autonomic activation, as well as task demands in virtual spatial navigation, focussed and sustained attention, working and recognition memory, and having implications for synaptic plasticity and long term potentiation. neuroanatomical circuitry involves the ascending mescencephalic-cortical arousal system, and limbic circuits subserving cognitive as well as affective/ motivational functions. working memory and meditative bliss, representing cognitive and affective domains, respectively, involve coupling between frontal and posterior cortices, exemplify a role for theta and alpha waves in mediating the interaction between distal and widely distributed connections. it is posited that this mediation in part underpins the integrational attributes of alpha–theta training in optimal performance and psychotherapy, creative associations in hypnogogia, and enhancement of technical, communication and artistic domains of performance in the arts.”