Dopaminergic and Noradrenergic Contributions to Divergent and Convergent Creativity Task Performance, a Systematic Review.

A range of factors affect performance on tasks associated with creativity, including stress, pharmacology, behavioral interventions, and neural stimulation strategies. Most of the pharmacological impacts have focused on the dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems. However, some evidence suggests that these systems may differ in their impact on performance on divergent and convergent tasks. We performed a systematic PubMed review examining the results for 'creativity and (dopamine or dopaminergic)' and 'creativity and (norepinephrine or noradrenergic or adrenergic)'. The dopaminergic search yielded 238 articles. The noradrenergic search yielded 102 articles. The articles were screened for actually targeting these systems (for example, by pharmacological intervention or by examining genetics relevant to these systems) and examining performance on divergent or convergent tasks. Results of the review of the qualifying articles lent some support to an impact of the dopaminergic system on divergent task performance, and suggested an impact of the noradrenergic system on convergent task performance, but often required additional factors such as stress to reveal robust effects. This review suggests a differential impact of the dopaminergic system and noradrenergic system on divergent and convergent task performance, but studies to systematically address this question across conditions are lacking, and would be needed going forward.