Trial reportCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2015
Functional role of frontal alpha oscillations in creativity.
Trial report in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04650438 (Sleep and Creativity), which is not on this map. Cited by 52 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Sleep and Creativity
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Systematic Review on the Adult Alpha Brainwave Activity After Essential Oil Inhalation.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2023Pooled it
- Mapping the artistic brain: Common and distinct neural activations associated with musical, drawing, and literary creativity.Human brain mapping · 2020Pooled it
- Addiction history moderates the effect of prefrontal 10-Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation on habitual action selection.Journal of neurophysiology · 2021Trial
- Improvement in creativity after transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Modulating neural oscillations by transcranial static magnetic field stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A crossover, double-blind, sham-controlled pilot study.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Trial
- The fastest among us… The unique capacity of self-control of upper alpha brain oscillations for expedited mental rotation by some individuals.Cognitive processing · 2026Article
- Spectral EEG-guided adaptive neuromodulation for social anxiety disorder, performance-only subtype: a case report.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Effects of Mandala Coloring on Alpha Brain Activity and Anxiety Symptoms among Students at Universiti Sains Malaysia: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Consortium psychiatricum · 2026Article
- Enhanced creative thinking performance: the role of alpha frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation in the parieto-occipital region.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Failure modes and mitigations for Bayesian optimization of neuromodulation parameters.Journal of neural engineering · 2025Review
- Hidden Brain States Reveal the Temporal Dynamics of Neural Oscillations During Metaphor Generation and Their Role in Verbal Creativity.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Appropriate Parenting Style to Improve Offspring's Creativity Differs Depending on the Offspring's Empathizing-Systemizing Cognitive Style: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study.Behavioural neurology · 2025Article
- Electrophysiological signatures of ongoing thoughts during naturalistic behavior.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- The impact of transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) on alpha coherence and verbal divergent thinking.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Time course of EEG power during creative problem-solving with insight or remote thinking.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Inter-brain coupling reflects disciplinary differences in real-world classroom learning.NPJ science of learning · 2023Article
- Sensorimotor cortex activity during basketball dribbling and its relation to creativity.PloS one · 2023Article
- Editorial: Insights into the mechanisms of transcranial electrical stimulation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Cortical oscillations support sampling-based computations in spiking neural networks.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Synchronised neural signature of creative mental imagery in reality and augmented reality.Heliyon · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Creativity, the ability to produce innovative ideas, is a key higher-order cognitive function that is poorly understood. At the level of macroscopic cortical network dynamics, recent electroencephalography (EEG) data suggests that cortical oscillations in the alpha frequency band (8-12 Hz) are correlated with creative thinking. However, whether alpha oscillations play a functional role in creativity has remained unknown. Here we show that creativity is increased by enhancing alpha power using 10 Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (10 Hz-tACS) of the frontal cortex. In a study of 20 healthy participants with a randomized, balanced cross-over design, we found a significant improvement of 7.4% in the Creativity Index measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a comprehensive and most frequently used assay of creative potential and strengths. In a second similar study with 20 subjects, 40 Hz-tACS was used instead of 10 Hz-tACS to rule out a general "electrical stimulation" effect. No significant change in the Creativity Index was found for such frontal 40 Hz stimulation. Our results suggest that alpha activity in frontal brain areas is selectively involved in creativity; this enhancement represents the first demonstration of specific neuronal dynamics that drive creativity and can be modulated by non-invasive brain stimulation. Our findings agree with the model that alpha recruitment increases with internal processing demands and is involved in inhibitory top-down control, which is an important requirement for creative ideation.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.