What Creativity Looks Like in the Brain: A Closer Look at This Stunning EEG Visualization

When people think about the brain creating art, they often imagine a single “creative center” lighting up like a bulb, one magical spot responsible for inspiration.

In reality, creativity is nothing like that.

The image you see above is a scientific visualization that captures electrical activity across the brain in real time. Though it resembles a piece of modern art, a swirl of color, motion, and looping electric pathways, it’s actually a map of how the brain behaves during thought, imagination, and perception.

Let’s break down what you’re actually looking at, and then explore how this ties directly into creativity, visual imagination, and the philosophy behind Neurosize™.

What You’re Seeing in This Image

This visualization is typically generated through EEG source localization or MEG current field mapping, two ways of measuring the brain’s electromagnetic activity.

Here’s what each element represents:

The color map on the head

The blue, green, yellow, and red areas correspond to electrical activity intensity.

Blue = lower activity

Red/yellow = higher activity

This helps us see where the brain is especially active in a particular moment.

The loops, spirals, and swirling lines

These represent field lines, the flow and direction of electromagnetic activity across the cortex.

They look abstract and artistic, but they’re actually the brain’s electrical currents weaving through different networks.

The overall effect

A portrait of thought. A living map of a mind at work.

Do These Regions Relate to Art, Creativity, Imagery, and Aesthetic Thinking?

Yes, profoundly.

But not because there’s one “art lobe.” Creativity doesn’t come from a single location. Instead, it emerges when multiple networks begin interacting, communicating, and synchronizing with one another.

Below are the major networks involved when someone is creating, imagining, or making sense of imagery. Each one would show up in a brain map like the one above.

🎨 1. The Default Mode Network (DMN)

The imagination engine.

This network becomes active during internal thought:

Daydreaming

Mental imagery

Storytelling

Reflection

Spontaneous idea generation

Key regions include the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, and angular gyrus.

In the image, the blue-to-green areas near the top/back of the head align closely with parts of the DMN.

The DMN is where creative ideas begin forming long before they take shape.

🎭 2. The Salience Network

The switchboard that decides what matters.

This network monitors when to shift between internal creativity and external attention. It’s responsible for the feeling of being “in the zone.”

Key regions include the anterior cingulate and the insula.

The Salience Network is what helps a raw idea become something worth pursuing.

✏️ 3. The Executive Network

Creativity gains structure.

This network guides planning, sequencing, and organizing the flow of an idea, turning imagination into something concrete.

Key regions include the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and lateral parietal cortex.

In the image, the cooler blue areas on the left frontal lobe match Executive Network activity that might occur while someone is shaping art, making decisions, or solving a creative problem.

👁️ 4. The Visual Cortex (Occipital Lobe)

The birthplace of imagery.

Any time someone imagines shapes, patterns, contrasts, or motion, whether recalling a memory or inventing something new, the visual cortex lights up.

In the image, this corresponds to the bright yellow and red near the rear/top.

✔️ So What Does All of This Mean for Creativity?

It means this:

Creativity is a full-brain phenomenon.It’s not a location. It’s a network.

When someone imagines, makes art, or engages in a brain-bending task, multiple systems activate at once, weaving loops of electrical activity across the entire cortex, just like the image above.

This is what makes creativity universal. This is why anyone can tap into it. And this is a foundation of Neurosize™.

Neurosize was designed around a powerful truth:

The brain becomes most creative when it is surprised, challenged, and playfully engaged across multiple networks at once.

Our sessions intentionally activate:

Imagination (DMN)

Focus and switching (Salience Network)

Structured reasoning (Executive Network)

Visual pathways and spatial thinking (Occipital Cortex)

This is why people often feel “awake,” “creative,” or “more themselves” after a session, because the networks responsible for art, imagination, and insight are literally lighting up.

The image above isn’t just a scientific diagram.

It’s a portrait of what happens when a human mind begins to create.

And that is the heart of Neurosize™.