Superior colliculus coordinates whole-brain dynamics for sudden unconscious visual insight

Recognition of Mooney images, highly degraded black-and-white stimuli, provides a classic paradigm for studying unconscious, sudden generative insight often accompanied by a “Eureka!” experience. This spontaneous recognition is believed to rely on top-down modulation by widespread cortical networks, a conclusion primarily drawn from contrasts between recognition and non-recognition. However, how the brain transitions from non-recognition to recognition remains unclear, particularly regarding the role of non-cortical regions such as the midbrain superior colliculus. Here we show that this transition can be captured by three data-driven large-scale functional clusters, reflecting stimulus-driven activation, suppression, and recognition-associated dynamics. Within these whole-brain dynamics, the superior colliculus displayed a distinct activation peak just before the behavioral response indicating recognition, and was the only region exhibiting mutual positive interactions with all three clusters. Although the superior colliculus has been recognized as a key node in binary perceptual decision-making in non-human primates, its contribution to human insight has remained largely unexplored. Our findings suggest that the superior colliculus coordinates large-scale neural activity for unconscious generative insight, revealing that evolutionarily conserved non-cortical structures may contribute directly to higher-level cognitive processes.