Role of Cross-Frequency Coupling in the Frontal and Parieto-Occipital Subnetwork during Creative Ideation

In this study, we investigate the role of cross-frequency coupling (CFC) between the low frequency frontal (F) oscillations and high frequency parieto-occipital (PO) oscillations in creative ideation. These long distance brain interactions have been associated with cognitive processes like working memory (WM). We analyzed the α-γ, θ-α and θ-γ coupling for three different phases (early, mid and late) of creative ideation. We used Alternate Uses (AU) task as experimental paradigm for generating creative thinking and Object Characteristics (OC) task as the control. The results indicate significantly higher F to PO connection for AU compared to OC across all the three tested CFCs, in the early phase of creative ideation. Further, our results suggest that the late phase of creative ideation is associated with significantly lower θ-α and θ-γ coupling but higher α-γ coupling compared to OC. The results demonstrate that these F to PO cross-frequency interactions, associated with the WM subnetworks, play a major role in creative ideation. Further, our results suggest α-γ interaction in the early phase of creative ideation to be a potential biomarker for individual differences in creativity.