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Creativity in ADHD—Neurophysiological Correlates

Creativity in ADHD—Neurophysiological Correlates

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Working memory is impaired under the influence of alcohol. However, in a specific creativity task—the Remote Association Test (in which participants are asked to form unusual associations)—this actually leads to better performance. Possible reason: Executive attention regulation otherwise hinders the formation of loose associations; people tend to think more “straightforwardly”—which is also much more useful for the vast majority of everyday tasks.1

Students with ADHD-C exhibited more unusual and broader associations, presumably due to reduced inhibitory control. They came up with more and more unusual ideas for features that a smartphone could have. The ideas generated by people with ADHD were just as practical as those of people without ADHD. The research literature on ADHD and creativity has been inconsistent to date, due in part to differing definitions of creativity.2

Creativity appears to be mediated (in part) dopaminergically.3 In ADHD, dopamine appears to enhance performance on convergent tasks (where exactly one solution is correct) or divergent tasks (where there are many different solutions), whereas norepinephrine does not.4 In contrast, one review found that dopamine enhances performance on divergent tasks, while norepinephrine enhances performance on convergent tasks.5
Creativity appears to correlate with striatal dopamine levels in the form of an inverted U-curve. Creativity was highest at moderate dopamine levels.67 8 In healthy adults, methylphenidate influenced creativity, with MPH increasing creativity in individuals with low novelty seeking and decreasing it in those with high novelty seeking.9
In healthy men, a dopamine reuptake inhibitor increased divergent thinking (a form of creativity) to a greater extent the more open the people with ADHD were to new experiences. With the placebo, no correlation was found between openness to experience and divergent thinking.10

  1. Jarosz AF, Colflesh GJ, Wiley J (2012): Uncorking the muse: alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving. Conscious Cogn. 2012 Mar;21(1):487-93. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.002. PMID: 22285424. ↥

  2. White H A, Shah P (2016): Scope of Semantic Activation and Innovative Thinking in College Students with ADHD. Creativity Research Journal, 28(3), 275–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2016.1195655 ↥

  3. Ueda Y, Tominaga A, Kajimura S, Nomura M (2016): Spontaneous eye blinks during creative task correlate with divergent processing. Psychol Res. 2016 Jul;80(4):652-9. doi: 10.1007/s00426-015-0665-x. PMID: 25863791. ↥

  4. Appling C, Nuraini N, Hart E, Wang D, Tosh A, Beversdorf D, Ferguson B (2025): Heart Rate Variability Prediction of Stimulant-Induced Creativity Gains in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. J Clin Med. 2025 May 20;14(10):3570. doi: 10.3390/jcm14103570. PMID: 40429570; PMCID: PMC12111806. ↥

  5. Beversdorf DQ (2025): Dopaminergic and Noradrenergic Contributions to Divergent and Convergent Creativity Task Performance, a Systematic Review. Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Aug 30;15(9):1185. doi: 10.3390/bs15091185. PMID: 41009215; PMCID: PMC12466433. REVIEW ↥

  6. Agnoli S, Mastria S, Zanon M, Corazza GE (2023): Dopamine supports idea originality: the role of spontaneous eye blink rate on divergent thinking. Psychol Res. 2023 Feb;87(1):17-27. doi: 10.1007/s00426-022-01658-y. PMID: 35141768; PMCID: PMC9873774. ↥

  7. Chermahini SA, Hommel B (2010): The (b)link between creativity and dopamine: spontaneous eye blink rates predict and dissociate divergent and convergent thinking. Cognition. 2010 Jun;115(3):458-65. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.03.007. PMID: 20334856. ↥

  8. Boot N, Baas M, van Gaal S, Cools R, De Dreu CKW (2017): Creative cognition and dopaminergic modulation of fronto-striatal networks: Integrative review and research agenda. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2017 Jul;78:13-23. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.04.007. PMID: 28419830. REVIEW ↥

  9. Gvirts HZ, Mayseless N, Segev A, Lewis DY, Feffer K, Barnea Y, Bloch Y, Shamay-Tsoory SG (2017): Novelty-seeking trait predicts the effect of methylphenidate on creativity. J Psychopharmacol. 2017 May;31(5):599-605. doi: 10.1177/0269881116667703. PMID: 27624151. ↥

  10. Käckenmester W, Bott A, Wacker J (2019): Openness to experience predicts dopamine effects on divergent thinking. Personal Neurosci. 2019 Jul 26;2:e3. doi: 10.1017/pen.2019.3. PMID: 32435738; PMCID: PMC7219677. ↥