Why ADHD "Hunters" are More Creative than “Normal People”
Why ADHD "Hunters" are More Creative than “Normal People”
But what is the mechanism of that creativity? How are ADHD Hunters’ brains organized differently than Farmers’ brains?
Multiple studies over the years suggest people with ADHD are more creative than Farmers or “normal people.”
University of Michigan research scientist Holly White writes in Scientific American about studies she conducted to measure this relationship, which is readily demonstrated.
White points out there are three parts to the creative process: divergent thinking, conceptual expansion, and overcoming knowledge constraints. The most crucial, she argues, is divergent thinking, or the ability to “think out of the box,” to turn a single starting point into many possible destinations, thought-wise:
“Previous research has established that individuals with ADHD are exceptionally good at divergent thinking tasks,” she writes, “such as inventing creative new uses for everyday objects, and brainstorming new features for an innovative cell phone device.
“In a new study, college students with ADHD scored higher than non-ADHD peers on two tasks that tapped conceptual expansion and the ability to overcome knowledge constraints. Together with previous research, these new findings link ADHD to all three elements of the creative cognition trio.”
But what is the mechanism of that creativity? How are ADHD Hunters’ brains organized differently than Farmers’ brains?
Way back in 2004, Professor Richard Silberstein was visiting Louise and me from his home in Australia, where he taught classes about the biology and functioning of the brain. He showed us results from brain scans he was doing on ADHD children, comparing them before and after taking Ritalin and in other circumstances.
During a test of the ability to concentrate (the A-X version of the Continuous Performance Task, AX-CPT), Richard noticed that there was a decreased level of connectivity between the frontal and parietal regions of the brain in “normal” kids, and an increased level of connectivity among ADHD kids.
I commented, rather offhand, that I wondered if the increased connectivity between those two regions may have something to do with increased creativity in the ADHD kids, an intuition for which I had no scientific backup. Richard nodded gravely, but I didn’t realize until three years later that he had decided there and then that he was going to test my hypothesis.
And test it he did. Richard is one of the world’s pioneers in the use of a no-radiation non-invasive form of brain scanning and he applied it to the question of creativity. Between the time in 2007 when he first shared his work with me and 2021, he completed several rounds of studies and came to a clear conclusion: people with ADHD have high creativity and that creativity is tied back to the condition itself.
In an article written for the average lay science fan, he published his findings on Medium.com in an article titled Neuroscience of the Creative Geek. There are, he writes, two brain networks or systems that work like opposite sides of a teeter-totter; when one goes up, the other goes down, and vice-versa. They are the Default Mode Network and the Task Networks.
When we’re focused on a particular job or problem, the Task Networks kick in; this is where our focused attention comes into play. On the other hand, when we’re daydreaming or relaxing into an unfocused state the Default Mode Network takes over.
The field of creativity as an area of scientific inquiry has really picked up over the past two decades and one of the big discoveries has been the association of the Default Mode Network and moments of great creativity.
But just having a creative idea doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea. In this regard, a third network — the Judgement Network — kicks into action. It operates below the level of consciousness and continuously evaluates ideas coming out of the Default Mode Network. When ideas are absurd, it rejects them and they never enter consciousness; when they’re viable, it lets them through.
But the Judgement Network isn’t infallible and doesn’t have perfect information. So, little cracks in it let through creative ideas that might have been rejected by a more stringently-organized Judgement Network.
As Richard writes:
“Generally, the more active the Judgement Network is, the more stringently it judges new ideas and the more likely it is to reject the answers provided by the Default Mode Network and vice versa. Higher levels of Judgement Network activity will suppress creativity as even good ideas and solutions generated by the Default Mode Network may be rejected. Conversely, lower levels of Judgement Network activity is associated with higher creativity.”
He notes that ADHD had been considered a failure of neurochemistry: too little dopamine or other neurochemicals, which could be remedied by supplementation with Ritalin or another stimulant drug that gooses dopamine levels. But, he writes, that’s far too simplistic:
“More recently, we have come to recognize that the ADHD symptoms arise from an altered relationship between the Default Mode Network and the Task Networks. These networks have a mutual inhibitory relationship in that when the Task Networks are active, such as when you are paying attention or engaged in a thinking task, the Default Mode Network is inhibited and less active.”
The very distractability and impulsivity that characterize ADHD are caused by the Default Mode Network intruding into consciousness and overriding the Task Network or even the Judgement Network.
Not only does this drive those behaviors, Professor Silberstein notes, but it’s also the mechanism by which creativity breaks through into consciousness, and can even be suppressed with medication:
“We now know that people diagnosed with ADHD have a Default Mode Network that is naturally more active, and it is this that accounts for their greater creativity. Work from my laboratory has shown how methylphenidate (Ritalin), the most common drug used to treat ADHD symptoms achieves this by increasing dopamine levels which in turn inhibit the Default Mode Network and thus reducing the intrusions of the Default Mode Network and hence improving task performance.”
These remarkable insights into the mechanisms of creativity and their association with ADHD also give us clues about to how to enhance creativity. For example, periodically activating the Default Mode Network intentionally, through relaxation or mindfulness meditation, can bring creative potential up to the surface.
Mindfulness meditation (the topic of a future article here hunterinafarmersworld.com) can also help loosen the grip of the Judgement Network, so creative thoughts can slip through.
The bottom line, though, is that Hunters are not only blessed with a skill set that would help ancient people (and today’s cops, reporters, and soldiers) survive but also position people “afflicted” with ADHD as creative leaders of society and the sciences.