SynthesisHuman brain mapping2020
Mapping the artistic brain: Common and distinct neural activations associated with musical, drawing, and literary creativity.
Synthesis in Human brain mapping, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 3 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 81 citations in OpenAlex.
- Consistent neural evidence to support novelty and appropriateness processing for creative thinking: a coordinated meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation.Brain structure & function · 2026Pooled it
- Acute and Chronic Physical Activity Increases Creative Ideation Performance: A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-analysis.Sports medicine - open · 2022Pooled it
- Mapping the artistic brain: Common and distinct neural activations associated with musical, drawing, and literary creativity.Human brain mapping · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Art, neuroplasticity, and tradition: a narrative review and conceptual perspective of Chinese woodblock printing in global art practices and Parkinson's disease neuroscience.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Creativity in Music: The Brain Dynamics of Jazz Improvisation.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Mapping the brain networks underlying creativity enhancement via aesthetic experience.European journal of medical research · 2025Review
- Mapping Neuroimaging Findings of Creativity and Brain Disease Onto a Common Brain Circuit.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Transcranial direct current stimulation targeting the bilateral IFG alters cognitive processes during creative ideation.NPJ science of learning · 2024Article
- Article
- On the connection between creativity and aesthetics.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Creativity in verbal associations is linked to semantic control.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- A Supervised Machine Learning Approach to Classify Brain Morphology of Professional Visual Artists versus Non-Artists.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Unraveling the pathophysiology of schizophrenia: insights from structural magnetic resonance imaging studies.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Use of Self-Figure Drawing as an Assessment Tool for Child Abuse: Differentiating between Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Abuse.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The elephant in the room: attention to salient scene features increases with comedic expertise.Cognitive processing · 2022Article
- The effects of anthropomorphism and multimodal biometric authentication on the user experience of voice intelligence.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2022Article
- The Cerebellum and Beauty: The Impact of the Cerebellum in Art Experience and Creativity.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2022Article
- Dynamic Inter-Brain Networks Correspond With Specific Communication Behaviors: Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning During Creative and Non-creative Communication.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- Brain activation during the observation of real soccer game situations predicts creative goal scoring.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Whether creativity is a domain-general or domain-specific ability has been a topic of intense speculation. Although previous studies have examined domain-specific mechanisms of creative performance, little is known about commonalities and distinctions in neural correlates across different domains. We applied activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to identify the brain activation of domain-mechanisms by synthesizing functional neuroimaging studies across three forms of artistic creativity: music improvisation, drawing, and literary creativity. ALE meta-analysis yielded a domain-general pattern across three artistic forms, with overlapping clusters in the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Regarding domain-specificity, musical creativity was associated with recruitment of the SMA-proper, bilateral IFG, left precentral gyrus, and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) compared to the other two artistic forms; drawing creativity recruited the left fusiform gyrus, left precuneus, right parahippocampal gyrus, and right MFG compared to musical creativity; and literary creativity recruited the left angular gyrus and right lingual gyrus compared to musical creativity. Contrasting drawing and literary creativity revealed no significant differences in neural activation, suggesting that these domains may rely on a common neurocognitive system. Overall, these findings reveal a central, domain-general system for artistic creativity, but with each domain relying to some degree on domain-specific neural circuits.
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Identifiers
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.