Creative Thinking and Brain Network Development in Schoolchildren

Fostering creative minds has always been a premise to ensure adaptation to new challenges of human civilization. While some alternative educational settings (i.e., Montessori) were shown to nurture creative skills, it is unknown how they impact underlying brain mechanisms across the school years. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental science 2023-11, Vol.26 (6), p.e13389-e13389
Main Authors: Duval, Philippe Eon, Fornari, Eleonora, Décaillet, Marion, Ledoux, Jean-Baptiste, Beaty, Roger E, Denervaud, Solange
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain Hemisphere Functions
Brain mapping
Brain research
Children
Cognitive Ability
Creative Thinking
Diagnostic Tests
Educational Philosophy
Elementary School Students
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Montessori Method
Neural networks
Pedagogy
Preschool Children
Scores
Secondary School Students
Teaching Methods
Tests
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Summary:Fostering creative minds has always been a premise to ensure adaptation to new challenges of human civilization. While some alternative educational settings (i.e., Montessori) were shown to nurture creative skills, it is unknown how they impact underlying brain mechanisms across the school years. This study assessed creative thinking and resting-state functional connectivity via fMRI in 75 children (4-18 y.o.) enrolled either in Montessori or traditional schools. We found that pedagogy significantly influenced creative performance and underlying brain networks. Replicating past work, Montessori-schooled children showed higher scores on creative thinking tests. Using static functional connectivity analysis, we found that Montessori-schooled children showed decreased within-network functional connectivity of the salience network. Moreover, using dynamic functional connectivity, we found that traditionally-schooled children spent more time in a brain state characterized by high intra-default mode network connectivity. These findings suggest that pedagogy may influence brain networks relevant to creative thinking--particularly the default and salience networks. Further research is needed, like a longitudinal study, to verify these results given the implications for educational practitioners.
ISSN:1363-755X
1467-7687
DOI:10.1111/desc.13389