Phase to amplitude coupling as a potential biomarker for creative ideation: An EEG study

The most consistent finding of creative ideation in the neuroscientific study of creativity is the increment of EEG α power. However, the majority of existing studies focused only on ERP experimental paradigms while only a few analyzed time-related changes of EEG α power patterns during the time unlocked creation of ideas. Here, we designed an experimental paradigm where the participants were asked to generate alternative uses of everyday objects (AU task). For the control task, we adopted an Object Characteristics (OC) task, for which participants were asked to list typical characteristics or properties of an object. We estimated relative power spectrum, global efficiency from brain networks constructed with the imaginary part of coherence and phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) as potential biomarkers of creativity. Both relative power spectrum and nodal global efficiency failed to reach significant level by comparing AU with OC. In contrast, statistically significant differences between AU and OC were detected with PAC estimated within sensors in frequency pairs θ-γ and α2-γ. Our results can be the ground for both detecting and designing a connectomic biomarker of creativity.