Neural underpinnings of divergent production of rules in numerical analogical reasoning

•We examine divergent production of rules in numerical analogical reasoning.•The prefrontal and parietal cortices play important roles in divergent production of rules.•The right middle frontal cortex (BA10) is involved in the formation of novel rules.•The left inferior parietal lobule (BA40) is involved in the formation of novel rules.•The superior frontal cortex (BA8) is associated with inhibition of initial rules.

Creativity plays an important role in numerical problem solving. Although the neural underpinnings of creativity have been studied over decades, very little is known about neural mechanisms of the creative process that relates to numerical problem solving. In the present study, we employed a numerical analogical reasoning task with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of divergent production of rules in numerical analogical reasoning. Participants performed two tasks: a multiple solution analogical reasoning task and a single solution analogical reasoning task. Results revealed that divergent production of rules involves significant activations at Brodmann area (BA) 10 in the right middle frontal cortex, BA 40 in the left inferior parietal lobule, and BA 8 in the superior frontal cortex. The results suggest that right BA 10 and left BA 40 are involved in the generation of novel rules, and BA 8 is associated with the inhibition of initial rules in numerical analogical reasoning. The findings shed light on the neural mechanisms of creativity in numerical processing.