From default to creativity: prefrontal and cerebellar contributions of the default mode network to goal-directed remote thinking

Creativity is a hallmark of human cognition, characterized by the ability to connect seemingly distant concepts or ideas. Existing theories suggest that remote thinking can be achieved either spontaneously (constrained by the structure of semantic memory) or in a goal-directed manner (constrained by a creative goal). The present study investigates the neural correlates of goal-directed remote thinking, defined as the intentional production of semantically distant associations. Using a simple word-to-word association task comprising both a spontaneous condition and a goal-directed creative condition, we investigated Goal-directed Remoteness as the extra semantic distance traveled away from spontaneous responses when instructed to think creatively. Task-based functional MRI in 38 healthy young adults identified brain regions whose activation scaled with Goal-directed Remoteness. The results revealed that activity in the rostromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the right cerebellar Crus I & II was positively modulated by Goal-directed Remoteness. Control analyses confirmed the robustness of these findings independently of the cue-words semantic or linguistic properties. Follow-up seed-based resting-state functional connectivity analyses characterized the intrinsic connectivity profiles of the revealed regions. They showed that rostromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal and cerebellar Crus I & II regions formed a functionally interconnected network primarily overlapping with the default-mode network (DMN). Our findings challenge the traditional view of the DMN as supporting only passive or spontaneous cognition. Instead, they reveal a prefronto-cerebellar DMN subnetwork supporting goal-directed remote thinking, a key component of creative cognition. Within this network, the rostromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and cerebellar Crus I & II play an active role in the intentional generation of connections between distant concepts.