Very creative people have a special kind of brain activity

A person playing piano

The stronger your alpha waves, the better your improvising

Keerati Chinvoraratkanok/Getty

Need to get creative? A type of brainwave has been linked to creativity, and the more synchronised these are, the higher the quality of your creative output.

Joel Lopata at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and his colleagues found this out by asking 22 pianists to listen to, play back, or improvise jazz melodies.

During these tasks, the team monitored the electrical activity in each person’s pre-frontal cortex – a region of the brain that orchestrates our thoughts and goals. When groups of neurons send …