Attention unleashed: Creative Therapy for thoughtful transformation

Everyone possesses a unique level of creativity, varying in quality and intensity. Creative mental operations are influenced by motivation, interest, fatigue, and external stimuli, which also affect attention. The cognitive process of attention relies on selectively focusing on specific environmental elements or internal thoughts. This selectivity is crucial in filtering distractions, maintaining concentration, and effectively processing information. Thus, creative thinking and attention share common functioning principles, possibly involving unified neural networks and pathways in executive control. Therefore, investigating the underlying neural mechanisms remains crucial; however, several challenges exist.The first challenge relates to insufficient empirical data on animal models to assess the neural circuits of creativity, particularly in rodents. These animal models could offer complementary mechanistic proxies for the mental operation of creative thinking and attention in human models. The second challenge is the lack of integrated brain and computational models to provide a prediction-based explanation of the relationship between creative thinking and attention. We highlight the connection between creative thinking and attention by offering three recommendations to address the challenges. We center these recommendations on re-establishing the brain's agenda for creative thinking. This agenda offers new therapeutic possibilities for managing attention deficits, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.