Neural correlates of metacontrol persistence and flexibility induced by creativity and meditation

The neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive metacontrol states of persistence and flexibility are not yet fully understood but are thought to be modulated by frontal and striatal dopamine, respectively. In this study, we attempted to induce persistence and flexibility states by having participants engage in 2 creativity tasks (remote associates task and alternative uses task) and 2 meditation techniques (focused-attention meditation and open-monitoring meditation), to study the neural correlates of these metacontrol states and test the metacontrol model of creativity (MCC). Results show that brain areas known to be modulated by both frontal and striatal dopamine were activated in conditions that are thought to call for persistence, particularly the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and basal ganglia, indicating goal-related selective attention and top-down control. In contrast, conditions that call for flexibility showed brain activation in areas of the default mode network, suggesting reduced top-down control. This pattern was much clearer for the creativity tasks than meditation. Notably, we did not find significant effects when contrasting the 2 meditation techniques and when looking at brain activation overlap between meditation and creativity at the whole-brain level. Finally, the examination of the MCC provided partial supporting evidence for the model, but its prediction for the left inferior frontal gyrus showed the exact opposite result, which calls for clarification in future research.