Review: Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation

Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation by Elkhonon Goldberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Elkhonon Goldberg is someone who has spent his entire life time studying the lateralization aspect of the brain.This makes him one of the world’s most leading authorities on the aspect of hemispherization. I read this book because, one of his earlier books The Wisdom Paradox was recommend by Nassim Taleb, my intellectual hero. It is the reason why I picked up his recent release. And, I am extremely happy that I have read it. While you find so many books discussing the psychological aspects of creativity, this book Creativity is one of those rare books which discusses the neurobiology, neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of the brain when involved in creativity. Let the reader be informed that this book is full of technical details, which are interesting nonetheless.

Creativity can be defined as producing something original and at the same time useful. He proves in this book that three main aspects of the brain are important for creativity. The first one is the right hemisphere, the second one is the prefrontal cortex, which occupies one third of the brain and is responsible for intelligence, impulse control, decision making and various other functions. The third one is the neurochemical dopamine, which can be called as the pleasure chemical or reward chemical  of the brain. All these three have far more important role to play in fueling creativity than we have imagined.But that doesn't mean they are exclusively required for creativity. No, the brain need to co-ordinate efficiently with all the other regions of the brain to produce world-class creativity in an individual. He totally dismantles the localization theory of the brain( just to clarify).

He starts off the book by debunking certain neuromyths such as ,how this society gets it wrong into thinking that the right hemisphere is the creativity center  of the brain, and the left hemisphere is the logical or language hotspot. There might be some degree of truth to it, but that is not all. As the chapters pass by, he explains how the right hemisphere which was neglected by the neuro scientists for many decades as the ‘subdominant hemisphere’,and later on, thanks to certain neurological experiments, we got to know that the right hemisphere has far more important role to play in the seeking of novelty and creativity. He calls the right brain as ‘neuro orphan’.Though it may sound paradoxical or antithetical to the statement made earlier, it has a pivotal role to play in human creativity.

He proves the important roles that the right brain and the left brain has to play in certain functions by giving examples of certain neurological phenomena such as prosopognosia( the inability to recognize faces) ,apraxia, aphasia(language disability)  etc. If you take prosopognosia for instance, it occurs especially when right part of the brain is damaged. In case of aphasia or apraxias, it is the left brain which loses its functionality due to brain damage. Thereby, he shows how certain neurological conditions can reveal the functionalities of the brain.


The thesis of this entire book can be summed up as the Novelty-Routinization theory of the brain.Our right brain is always in search of novelty, while the left hemisphere prefers routine. He establishes this fact by expanding on the concepts of perservatory/exploratory behaviour. He also introduces the reader to concepts of Hypofrontality and Hyperfrontality, and tells the readers, how both are required to produce creative output. Oscillating between the states of Hypofrontality and Hyperfrontality, is what he calls as  bistability. And, it is highly conducive to creativity. Yes, it is agreed that hypofrontality is a phenomenon observed in various psychopatholgies such as addiction, psychosis and mood disorders. But he is not talking about such pathological conditions . He is talking about a kind of productive hypofrontality where by the brain reaches its creative peak.

Also, the book contains some interesting facts about the brains of great people such as Albert Einstein and Nikholoi Lenin. Both the brains, it seems had one feature in common. They had an extraordinarily thick corpus collosum,which is a structure that connects the left brain and the right brain. Apart from this, the book has other thought provoking facts about how dementia especially is on the decline in the recent years. All thanks to the changing cognitive habits and the cognitive reserves that we are building up as a generation, because of the heavy demands placed by the ever changing technologies.

If you are really the one who want to explore the neuro mechanics of creativity, then pick up this book. You won’t be disappointed.



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