Conference: Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity

Georgetown University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The neuroscience of creativity is a new and burgeoning area of research. The newness of the field presents a window of opportunity to make the newly founded Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity (this research area's first academic society) a mechanism that coalesces scientists around research priorities with educational relevance. Likewise, there is an opportunity to bring educators and education researchers into the dialogue at a critical early phase so that the growth of creativity neuroscience can be guided by and applied to real-world challenges and aspirations of educating a more creative workforce. From the perspective of the researcher, this meeting will streamline and catalyze progress in the neuroscience of creativity by supporting collaboration, cross-pollination, and reciprocal learning between researchers with related interests. The Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity is founded with a charter of outreach and inclusiveness. Among our major goals is the involvement of women and members of underrepresented minority groups in our meetings and online community, and direct educational outreach. Examples of planned activities to support these goals are the establishment of special travel funds for underrepresented minority students and for teachers of underserved minority students, and special outreach to high schools that serve low-income and minority students in the area where the meeting is held. The proposed meeting of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity will be held on March 24th, 2017 in San Francisco, CA as a satellite to the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting. The primary objective of the proposed meeting is to establish an inclusive community of scholars and educators seeking to understand and actively leverage the mechanisms of the brain that support creative thinking, teaching, and learning. The Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity is founded in order to build a bridge across a conspicuous gap between creativity researchers and educators working to foster creativity, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields where creative innovation is a key driver of advancements. The proposed conference is critical to establishing the newly founded society. In addition to this over-arching goal, we have identified a set of specific scientific priorities as critical for the productive development of the neuroscience of creativity. The meeting will highlight work that advances these priorities and actively encourage collaboration on these priorities among society members: 1) development of reliability for brain-based measures of creativity; 2) mapping the shared vs. distinct neural networks underlying different forms of creativity; 3) operationalizing key targets in education (especially in STEM fields) for which there is insufficient research about neural bases of relevant creative thinking; 4) identifying neural plasticity that mediates education-based improvements in creativity; 5) developing iterative, reciprocally-adaptive paradigms whereby neuroscience can inform improvements and individualization of educational approaches to fostering creativity; and 6) leveraging brain imaging to guide targeted, hypothesis-driven explorations of neural interventions that have potential to bolster creativity.