Where do creative thoughts come from? How can we harness our stream of consciousness and spontaneity to express ourselves? How are mind-wandering, meditation, and the arts good for our creativity and physical and mental well-being?
Dr. Ben Shofty is a functional neurosurgeon affiliated with the University of Utah. He graduated from the Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Medicine, received his PhD in neurosurgical training from the Israeli Institute of Technology, and completed his training at the Tel Aviv Medical Center and Baylor University. He was also an Israeli national rugby player. His practice specializes in neuromodulation and exploring treatments for disorders such as OCD, depression, and epilepsy, among others, while also seeking to understand the science behind creativity, mind-wandering, and the many complexities of the brain.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Let's talk about creativity. We still don't know exactly what happens in our brains when we're being creative. So, how do you define creativity in the context of those higher-order functions? Can you help us understand the default mode network? You've written that there is not a specific location in the brain for creativity.
BEN SHOFTY
I think the common thing that happens whenever somebody is doing a creative process is that we have infrequent connection between two or more thought processes that weren't meant to be connected. That's when we get that sort of eureka moment when we are able to fuse two things that, or more that aren’t meant to be fused, and we generate something that is actually great. And to me, this is one of the most interesting things that the human mind sort of evolved and specialized to do.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
In terms of your own experience with creativity, I think you have a really interesting background. You were a former national rugby player in Israel. You’ve experienced creativity in the lab and even as a surgeon, you must be coming up with solutions in the moment. Some people might not label that as creative, but when it's high stakes or something unexpected happens during surgery, I imagine you have to use creative problem solving to turn it around. In that moment, creativity can really save a life, and so often there is this split second thinking that's hard to track what’s happening in the creative mind. Can you speak about the more elusive processes like creativity or high-order cognitive functions? Is there a specific area inside the brain where we can see areas where we can see creative sparks emerage?
AI-generated by the creative process via DALL-E
SHOFTY
So I feel, when you think about the evolution of the human brain–just like other animals that have specialized in speed or keeping warm or gathering food–I feel our brain sort of specialized being creative and flexible and being able to generate different solutions to a given problem. And to me – it's not written in my bio or anywhere else – but I used to cook and work at cooking. And to me, this is the most creative process, right? Taking something and generating a taste or a flavor or something completely different out of it.
To me, this is probably the most fascinating thought process that happens in the human brain. And what I do in neurosurgery–and my subspecialty is called functional neurosurgery–we don't deal with disorders in which there's an anatomical abnormality inside the brain. We deal with disorders in which there is an abnormal connection or abnormal circuitry inside the brain when there's an issue with the way the brain functions. There's no tumor. There are no abnormal blood vessels or anything like that. And that gives us an amazing opportunity to really investigate how different circuits and different areas inside the brain work.
In terms of the more elusive processes like creativity or high-order cognitive functions, we don't really know or understand where they are inside the brain. As you said, there's no creativity cortex, like we have a motor cortex, sensory cortex, or visual cortex.
When we started with this series of projects, we tried to think, if this function just like other higher cognitive functions, cannot be explained by a specific area inside the brain, then what happens? Where does the magic happen? And the answer was that it's a network-dependent function. It doesn't originate from a specific area inside the brain, but it originates from multiple brain networks sort of all of a sudden synchronizing to generate that unexpected function.
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If you talk about Stephen King or Jerry Seinfeld, you know, these people are creative for a living. So they know how to channel this internal thought process and generate these unexpected connections in order to generate the same sort of type of creativity, whether it's a book or a joke or something else. There are many other people who can harness creativity. For most of us, it's a process that starts with that spontaneous stream of thought when all of a sudden the default mode network synchronizes with other brain networks that sort of channel that internal mental process into generating something that is useful or helpful. So, there's a specific moment in which our internal stream of thought is synchronized with a goal-directed or intentional network. And that's when the creative process happens. And that's the sort of magic that were trying to find or analyze with the study that you're talking about.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Of course, there’s a dark side to creativity where high levels of creative mania are linked to mental health challenges, bipolar episodes, euphoria, and schizophrenia. I'd always thought that neurosurgical treatments for mental health disorders are complex and could be high risk, but I understand you work in an area where 60 to 70 percent of patients respond well to the treatment. So what are the biggest challenges you face translating research into practical, safe, and widely available treatments for disorders like OCD, depression, and PTSD?
SHOFTY
OCD is a relatively simple or understood disorder. We have a very specific brain circuit that is sort of in charge of the enhancement of obsessive thoughts and the following compulsions. So when we intervene with with the OCD circuitry, and there's, there's a lot of amazing work done by my former mentor at Baylor College of Medicine, Sameer Sheth, and Nicole Provenza from his group that are doing really amazing stuff in terms of dissecting that circuitry that leads to these recurrent obsessions and compulsions. I feel like it's a really sort of different thing. Of course, interventions for OCD are FDA-approved, so that's something that we do on a routine clinical basis. There are other mental health conditions like depression and schizophrenia. I'm intentionally bringing up these two because the way I see them, they represent two different types of default mode dysfunction. For example, depression has many subtypes, and it has apparently many different disorders. But one of the subtypes that we're studying in my lab is what we call rumination-type depression. It's the type of depression in which people keep ruminating and keep focusing on their internal thought process. And they just cannot, you know, shake off and concentrate on anything that happens in the outside world.
When somebody has rumination-type depression, they just can't do that, and they keep on ruminating and thinking about things that have happened, and they just can't shake them off. That leads to significant depressive symptoms. The other side of that default mode dysfunction is, for example, schizophrenia at the beginning of the disease, where they're very active, and patients are really stormy and have a lot of psychosis, which is the inability to differentiate external stimuli from internal stimuli. They have a lot of auditory and visual hallucinations, and the default mode network is so hyperactivated that you can't tell the difference between what's happening inside your brain and what's happening on the outside. These are two extreme conditions of what some people think is default mode network dysfunction or network dysfunction inside the brain, which also overlaps with the creative thought process. For the brain or body to function well, we need everything to be balanced, right?
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
We've been talking about meditation, and so mind wandering is, I think, often considered to be a form of mental rest, but on the flip, it can also lead to this negative rumination that you've discussed. So, what are some of the ways beyond what you've already discussed to harness mind wandering for mental resilience, especially in those individuals with a predisposition to anxiety or depression?
SHOFTY
So, mind wandering is another basic function that we associate with the default mode network. And again, our ability to mind wander can be a positive thing if we harness it into a mental break or rest–the extreme form of that is probably meditation. And it can be a bad thing if we basically are unable to concentrate on everything and our mind constantly wanders.
And it's a big issue today with all the screens and social media. Our ability to generate positive mind wandering is getting lost because our attention span has become a TikTok-length sort of attention span. Our ability to allow our mind to wander in healthy ways is getting lost. So a lot of people are interested in the changes that happen to that very basic critical form of thinking or spontaneous thought. It's hard to investigate, and we haven't had a very big success in investigating it because most of the patients that I work with underwent surgery, an invasive intervention, and they're basically having a hard time with mind wandering.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Do you foresee a future where such technology could be used to augment or directly tap into the creative process of the brain? Do you see the potential benefits or risks of such advancements?
SHOFTY
I'm one of the people who believe that anything that we as human beings can imagine will eventually happen. So, if somebody has raised the question possibility of having brain implants that augment the brain and generate additional functions, I feel like it will eventually happen. There are a lot of private companies, like Elon Musk's Neuralink and others, that are busy designing these interfaces and planning these devices. Of course, nothing is available or even close to completion right now.
The next step, of course, would be to modulate them. Just like any other thing in medicine, it will start or has already started with pathological states which we've talked about and people looking for potential interventions through TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). It doesn't necessarily have to be invasive, but of course the next step, especially when we're talking about the brain is to intervene and generate additional functions or to improve the way the brain functions. Many people are working on trying to generate memory augmentation, navigation augmentations, and a lot of other functions. I assume eventually it will reach a point where we'll be able to pick and choose what we want to augment about our own brains. I assume that the technology will be there eventually. And this is something that will be a part of the natural evolution of the human race.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What led you to delve into studying the mind, the brain, creativity, and all these areas? What was your way in?
SHOFTY
The reason I went into neurosurgery is because it provides the most intimate sort of understanding of what happens in the brain. When you operate on a patient, implant electrodes, or perform a resection for epilepsy or any other type of brain surgery, it puts you in a position where you truly understand the significance of the brain and the changes that the brain undergoes. For example, my old boss in Tel Aviv…we used to see our postoperative patients together. They used to tell us, "I can walk and talk, but I don't feel like the same person." That realization drew my mind to studying what makes us ourselves. I believe that creativity is one of the main things that defines our uniqueness as human beings because it's a very personalized thought process. Everyone is creative in a unique and special way. As someone who is interested in and likes other human beings, the question of what makes us unique and human distilled itself into figuring out what happens when we are creative.
What's interesting about meditation is that for people who are professional meditators, their default mode network is not hyperactive, but it's underactive when they meditate. So basically, when they meditate, they sort of break free from their spontaneous stream of consciousness, and that's how meditation should work.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
There is an ongoing debate about how social media and digital environments can potentially have a negative impact on our mental well-being, especially for young people. Numerous studies have explored the link between social media use and reduced psychological well-being, increased levels of depression, and low self-esteem. What are your views on this? How can we protect ourselves and young people from these potential negative effects?
SHOFTY
This is another philosophical question: whether this is our next step in evolution where we don't have to concentrate and we don't have to focus our attention on anything, but we need to be able to follow 20 different stimuli all at once. Maybe that's the way the human race is working towards? And maybe that's the next sort of attribute that we need to be successful in the future world? I do agree that a lot of scientific evidence is pointing out that these are not healthy processes and that they significantly impair our mental health and our well-being.
The best thing to do is to try and minimize exposure to these social networks and online media at younger ages. And also to find something that gives us a break from these things that are constantly hovering around us. If we can give ourselves and our loved ones a chance to get a break from that during their day, I feel like this will help minimize the effect.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you reflect on meditation and those ways to connect to our truest self or who we are when our mind is at rest and focused. Could you share your reflections on the beauty and wonder of the natural world and the different ways you tap into your creativity?
SHOFTY
I moved to Utah, which is a very beautiful place, and I feel like the mountains and the breathtaking nature that we have around here really help. There are many studies that have shown that exposure to nature and spending time in nature really helps us. It helps our well-being as human beings, and it also helps us to be creative, reflective, and calm. My personal creative process works through interaction with other people. Through genuine interest in other people and through spending time with them. These are the times when, through talking to people like you, friends, family, or even strangers, I usually think about questions that interest me and most of the time, these questions are abstract and amorphic. But every now and then, there's a question that I think, "Oh, wait, I can look into that through my lab or through my research, and I can utilize that question to try and help my patients." One such example is another project that we have in our lab, trying to understand how time perception happens in the brain and how subjective time perception works. This is something that, through interactions with other people in my lab, we eventually reach the point where we have a formed question that we can utilize to understand that process inside the brain.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you reflect on the future and the kind of world we're leaving the next generation, those lessons that you've learned from your teachers and mentors, what do you tell your children? What would you like young people to know, preserve, and remember?
SHOFTY
I think another thing that makes us human is our generational transfer of information. Our ability to distill the knowledge that was passed on to us and then pass it on and give it our unique stamp is again another one of these things that makes us human. The main thing that I've learned from my mentors and the main thing that I would like to pass on to my children is the notion that compassion is the most important thing that we have as human beings. And hopefully, I'll be able to teach myself and then them how to be also self-compassionate. I feel like this is a very good coping mechanism for this extremely violent and stimulating world that's happening out there. Whatever profession you choose, whatever you choose to study, just remember that there's a human being on the other side. This is something that social networks and online media are trying to make us forget: that there's actually a person on the other side of that video or text. I feel like this is the main thing that I would like to pass on to my children to help them remember that, eventually, we are all human.
