• Tengbin Huo, Yiman Li, Kaixiang Zhuang, Li Song, Xiao Wang, Zhiting Ren, Qiang Liu, Wenjing Yang, and Jiang Qiu.
• Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China.
• Neuroscience. 2020 Feb 10; 427: 92-104.

AbstractCreativity has been consistently linked to the default mode network (DMN) and conscientiousness. However, the specific core regions that are involved in the relationship between the DMN and creativity and the manner in which conscientiousness influences the neural mechanism that underlies creativity remain unexplored. Therefore, in the present study, we used a combination of graph theory techniques and affinity propagation clustering (APC) to identify the core subnetworks of the DMN that are related to creativity and examine predictive relationships between creativity and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). Additionally, the moderating role that two lower-order facets of conscientiousness, namely, industriousness and orderliness, play in this relationship was explored. The results showed that creativity was positively associated with the within-module degree (WMD) of one subnetwork of DMN (i.e., DMN2) and that industriousness was the only facet of conscientiousness that moderated this relationship. Specifically, creativity could be successfully predicted from the RSFC between DMN2 regions and all DMN regions in the high-industriousness group but not the low-industriousness group. Taken together, these results suggest that a core DMN subnetwork is crucial for creativity and that industriousness moderates the association between creativity and the DMN subnetwork.Copyright © 2019 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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