Biology subjects

De Pisapia, N.

Publications and source records attributed to De Pisapia, N..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

The Artists' Brain: A Data Fusion Approach to Characterize the Neural Bases of Professional Visual Artists

Although everyone has the capacity to draw, only some develop the expertise to produce professional art. Despite extensive creativity research, surprisingly little is known about how years of visual artistic training reshape the neural architecture that distinguishes professional artists from non-artist. To address this gap, we applied joint independent component analysis (jICA) to detect structural (gray matter volume - GM, white matter fractional anisotropy - FA), and functional (resting-state regional homogeneity - ReHo), neuroimaging data from 12 professional visual artists and 12 matched controls. This multimodal approach identified a joint GM-ReHo-FA component (IC2) that significantly distinguished artists from controls (p = .020, d = 1.028). Compared to controls, artists showed coordinated neural adaptations including increased gray matter in parietal, temporal, frontal regions and posterior cingulate cortex; enhanced white matter integrity in anterior thalamic radiations, corticospinal tracts, and association fibers; and increased functional homogeneity in basal ganglia and cerebellar structures. Notably, IC2 expression correlated with higher visual imagery vividness, linking neural adaptations to cognitive abilities fundamental to artistic creation. Taken together, these results highlight the involvement of canonical creativity networks (DMN-ECN) while also extending them to include domain-specific adaptations in cerebellar, sensorimotor, and subcortical systems. Despite these advances, replication with larger samples is necessary.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Neural dynamics of semantic control underlying generative storytelling

Storytelling has been pivotal for the transmission of knowledge and cultural norms across human history. A crucial process underlying the generation of narratives is the exertion of cognitive control on the semantic representations stored in memory, a phenomenon referred as semantic control. Despite the extensive literature investigating the neural mechanisms of semantic control in generative language tasks, little effort has been done towards storytelling under naturalistic conditions. Here, we probed human participants to generate stories in response to a set of instructions which triggered a narrative that was either appropriate (ordinary), novel (random), or balanced (creative), while recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal. By leveraging deep language models, we demonstrated how participants ideally balanced the level of semantic control during story generation. At the neural level, creative stories were differentiated by a multivariate pattern of neural activity in frontal cortices compared to ordinary ones and in fronto-temporo-parietal cortices with respect to randomly generated stories. Crucially, similar brain regions were also encoding the features that distinguished the stories behaviourally. Moreover, we decomposed the neural dynamics into connectome harmonic modes and found specific spatial frequency patterns underlying the modulation of semantic control during story generation. Finally, we found different functional coupling within and between the default mode, salience and control networks when contrasting creative stories with their controls. Together, our findings highlight the neural mechanisms underlying the regulation of semantic exploration during narrative ideation and contribute to a deeper understanding of the neural dynamics underpinning the role of semantic control in generative storytelling.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Simulated visual hallucinations in virtual reality enhance cognitive flexibility

Historically, psychedelic drugs are known to modulate cognitive flexibility, a central aspect of cognition permitting adaptation to changing environmental demands. Despite proof suggesting phenomenological similarities between artificially-induced and actual psychedelic altered perception, experimental evidence is still lacking about whether the former is also able to modulate cognitive flexibility. To address this, we measure participants cognitive flexibility through behavioral tasks after the exposure to virtual reality panoramic videos and their hallucinatory-like counterparts generated by the DeepDream algorithm. Results show that the estimated semantic network has a flexible structure when preceded by altered videos. Crucially, following the simulated psychedelic exposure, individuals also show an attenuated contribution of the automatic process and chaotic dynamics underlying the decision process. This suggests that simulated altered perceptual phenomenology enhances cognitive flexibility, presumably due to a reorganization in the cognitive dynamics that facilitates the exploration of uncommon decision strategies and inhibits automated choices.

animal behavior and cognition↗