Rock music improvisation shows increased activity in Broca’s area and its right hemisphere homologue related to spontaneous creativity

Abstract

Abstract Objective: The neural correlates of creativity are not well understood. We have previously shown that the subjective degree of creativity during improvisational guitar performance in rock music correlates with a degree of deactivation in the left Brodmann area 46 (BA46L) regardless of skill. Here, we tested additional hypotheses concerning prefrontal regions commonly activated during guitar improvisation. Results: Twenty guitarists performed improvised and formulaic blues rock sequences while cerebral blood flow was recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. We identified a new finding of significant hemodynamic response in Broca’s area (BA45L) and its right hemisphere homologue during improvised playing but not in formulaic playing. Our results indicated that bilateral BA45 activity is common during creative processes that involve improvisation, across all participants regardless of subjective feeling, skill, age, difficulty, history, or amount of practice. Contrary to previous results that have reported the contribution of subjective feelings of creativity to neural network modulation of BA46L, which is proposed to play a role in the creative process, our findings suggest that concurrent activity in BA45 is related to sustained execution of improvisation in motor control, analogous to motor planning with control of speech.