The Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity at UCLA enables an interdisciplinary team of leading scientists to advance knowledge about the biological bases of creativity. Starting with a pilot project program, a series of investigations was launched, spanning disciplines from basic molecular biology to cognitive neuroscience. Because the concept of creativity is multifaceted, initial efforts targeted refinement of the component processes necessary to generate novel, useful cognitive products. We identified core cognitive processes:
- Novelty Generation – the ability to flexibly and adaptively generate products that are unique;
- Working Memory and Declarative Memory – the ability to maintain, and then use relevant information to guide goal-directed performance, along with the capacity to store and retrieve this information; and
- Response Inhibition – the ability to suppress habitual plans and substitute alternate actions in line with changing problem-solving demands.
To study the basic mechanisms underlying these complex brain functions we use translational strategies. Starting from foundational studies in basic neuroscience, we forged an interdisciplinary strategy that permits the most advanced techniques for genetic manipulation and basic neurobiological research to be applied in close collaboration with human studies that converge on the same core cognitive processes. Our integrated research program aims to reveal the genetic architecture and fundamental brain mechanisms underlying creative cognition. The work holds enormous promise for both enhancing healthy cognitive performance and designing new treatments for diverse cognitive disorders.
Current projects (click on titles to read more information):
Principal Investigator: Istvan Molnar-Szakacs
This study will be the first to investigate the fundamental neural components of emotion understanding through music perception in both typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
The ability to enjoy music is a universal human trait - we relate to music spontaneously and effortlessly. Music also has the powerful and unique ability to awaken emotions, trigger memories, and to intensify our social experiences. These qualities give music extraordinary potential as a therapeutic tool, and yet little research has examined the power of music to alleviate human illness and suffering. Individuals with ASD are known to experience difficulties with the communication and understanding of emotion, such as difficulties in interpreting emotion from facial expressions. In contrast, individuals with ASD show no deficits in processing emotion in musical stimuli, presenting an interesting disassociation between these different types of emotional communication. We aim to leverage this intact ability, to examine the brain systems involved in emotional music perception and to acquire knowledge leading to new treatments for ASD and other disorders.
Listen to radio interview (6MB .wma file download)
Investigators: Alcino J. Silva, Daniel Geschwind
This project advances our prior research on genetically engineered “smart” mice, to reveal the specific changes in gene expression that are caused by memory-enhancing mutations.
Recent molecular and cellular studies with transgenic mice have uncovered several biochemical signaling pathways that are involved in learning and memory. However, most of these studies were based on loss of function experiments. Remarkably, more recent reports have indicated that besides impairing function, certain genetic mutations or transgenic manipulations can actually enhance performance in numerous learning tasks in mice. Mutants with learning and memory enhancements represent a unique tool with which to study the biology of learning and memory, and they are a wonderful entry into the more difficult question concerning the biology of extraordinary creativity. Using a variety of strategies, this project aims to unravel the molecular and cellular mechanisms required for enhancing the acquisition and retention of complex information. An important goal of these studies will be to characterize the interplay between molecular and cellular processes in three interacting memory systems (the hippocampus, amygdala and cortex) in mice with learning enhancements. It is possible that manipulations that affect learning enhancements could result in changes in individual brain regions and in the interaction between brain regions. Such changes may provide insight into the mechanisms by which higher cognitive functions, such as those related to high performance and creative emerge in the brain.
Investigators: Stephanie White, Daniel Geschwind
This project extends prior work that discovered genetic mechanisms underlying the uniquely creative periods of song generation, and maps the patterns of gene expression in the brain during development.
Our work for the Tennenbaum Creativity Initiative focuses on FoxP2, a transcriptional repressor. FoxP2 is the only molecule thus far to be directly and repeatedly linked to human speech and language. Mutations in the FOXP2 gene cause difficulty in the ability to make complex, sequential articulatory movements of the face and mouth, necessary for speech. This behavioral limitation is accompanied by structurally and functionally abnormal cortico-striatal circuitry in the affected members of the KE family, the best studied case. The human data thus suggest that FOXP2 is important for the development of neural circuitry that is later used for speech. To investigate FoxP molecules, we use songbirds as they are the only tractable research animal known to learn vocalizations. Songbirds and humans both undergo similar developmental phases in order to learn their vocalizations, using similar brain regions including cortico-striatal circuitry. A great advantage of studying songbirds is that the key areas within each portion of the cortico-striatal circuit that are dedicated to song (as opposed to other behaviors) have been identified. Our previous discoveries work suggests that FoxP2 likely plays post-developmental, in addition to developmental, roles in vocal learning, and further, may be regulated by the social context in which singing occurs. Thus, the study of FoxP2 in birdsong may provide a neuromolecular model for procedurally-learned motor exploration in general.
Investigators: J. David Jentsch, Russell Poldrack
his project characterizes molecular mechanisms mediating behavioral flexibility in rats or mice, and examines how atomoxetine (a treatment for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) affects neural circuitry in humans.
We propose that high functioning creativity depends critically upon cognitive and behavioral flexibility, including the ability to rapidly update thoughts and actions when contingencies begin to change. This kind of flexible behavior and cognition falls under the rubric of “cognitive control”. Recent work has highlighted the unique role for monoamine transmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin) in prefrontal cortex in the regulation of cognitive control; however, little is yet known about the specific molecular or neural mechanisms by which these transmitters act to permit flexible thought and behavior. To address these issues, the current project will employ pharmaco-fMRI studies in normal humans and pharmacological and genetic studies in rodents to reveal the mechanisms by which increased catecholamine function stimulates cognitive and behavioral flexibility. Based upon preliminary work in the rodent and non-human primate, we will examine the effects of the selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine [Strattera] on the ability to inhibit or switch prepotent responses and the ability to hold information in working memory, using convergent measures of these constructs in rodents and humans. This work has the potential to identify and characterize the ways in which cognitive function may be modulated in normal individual, providing the substrate for more creative (less inflexible) thought and behavior.
Investigators: Robert Bilder, Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, Susan Bookheimer, Tyrone Cannon, Nelson Freimer
his project characterizes the working memory, declarative memory, and response inhibition processes underlying creative cognition, and examines the genetic architecture of these human traits.
We have defined key cognitive component processes that putatively underlie creative cognition – novelty generation, working and declarative memory functions, and response inhibition functions – and in this project aim to measure these cognitive processes and identify their genetic bases. The proposed research will examine selected cognitive phenotypes reflecting these component cognitive functions, in order to determine their patterns of association (leading to the definition of novel “latent traits” or “endophenotypes”) which may be more closely related to brain function and genetic bases than raw test scores or more complex behavioral phenotypes. To accomplish this we aim to examine about 300 people with a battery of behavioral questionnaires and cognitive tests, and obtain a blood sample from which DNA will be extracted and genotyping will be performed. This project is a large-scale pilot study for future work that will aim to further refine specific cognitive phenotype measures, and relate these phenotypes to specific brain mechanisms and their genetic bases.
Investigators: Susan Bookheimer, Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, Fred w. Sabb
This project examines the development of creative cognitive processes in a gifted sample of children and adolescents, and maps the neural system activations that mark creative cognition.
The goal of the current research is to identify the neural bases of cognitive constructs that may underlie high-level cognitive expertise (superior intelligence). In examining the bases of human intelligence, this study takes a two-pronged approach, looking at both cognitive correlates and biological bases. To study the cognitive correlates, we use tests from cognitive psychology to discover whether fundamental cognitive components can account for differences in IQ scores. To explore the biological bases of intelligence, we use the methods of neuroscience (specifically fMRI) to shed light on the potential neural origins of differences in human intelligence. To be able to capture the fundamental neural processes supporting these exceptional abilities, we focus on three basic aspects of cognitive processing: working memory which supports the manipulation of information, integration of information that generates novel ideas and cognitive control which allows the selection of appropriate responses. By identifying the neuroanatomical circuits subserving these domains and describing the interactions between those circuits, we can provide answers to fundamental questions about general intelligence and cognitive reasoning in the developing human brain. Furthermore, the proposed studies may provide novel insight into brain regions that are involved in creative thought and divergent thinking.
Principal Investigator: Alan H Bond
The project investigates and implements computational models of cognitive processes involved in creative problem solving, such as dynamic goal setting, rerepresentation of problems, and multiple representations with mutual perception and constraint.
Our model of creative problem-solving has integrated planning, perception
and memory aspects, and is highly parallel, and is inspired
by human cognition and brain architecture.
We will also investigate
the practical applicability of the system to the support
of human creativity, and to the use of web-based knowledge.
This project is funded by the CreativeIT program of
the National Science Foundation.
We believe that our proposed modular processing architecture lends itself naturally to creative problem solving by providing:
- different types of representations which can
perceive each other, and mutually interact,
allowing large ("lateral") changes of representation - a distributed representation of the current situation
and of the currently perceived problem, as a set of
data structures of different types with representations
of desired constraints or goals of different types,
- a planning and metalevel planning regime which
allows flexible exploration of alternatives,
restructuring, and selection of representation type, - an episodic memory facility which allows the history of the problem solving process to be used in planning further problem solving actions.
