Salvador Dali's mental disorders were also the key to his creativity.
This study genotyped 200 adults who were considered and scored to be creative. People who had two copies of the neuregulin 1 mutation had higher scores on their creativity than did those who had either one or no copies of the neuregulin 1 mutation. How this affects creativity has yet to be determined however, the likelihood of having schizotypal traits with two copies of the mutation was no more likely than the other participants. It is suggested that this mutation could dampen the prefrontal cortex that helps to control mood and behavior. It could make come people very creative and make others psychotic. Intelligence could help to determine which of these occurs, with smarter people having a tendency to be more creative and less smart people having more psychotic issues. Those with high intelligence and psychosis tend to have a better time dealing with their psychosis and expressing it.
I find this information to be very interesting as it is a kind of typical assumption in society sometimes that insanity and creativity may be linked. Now there seems to be a genetic factor causing this. It would be interesting to see what other traits could be linked to genetics.
It is really interesting to hear that there is something concrete linking mental illness to creativity. To read that this may be caused by a single DNA letter mutation is a little frightening. I guess I underestimated the power of a single gene mutation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous comment. I've always heard generalizations made between mental illness and creativity but at first I thought it was just because people see numerous cases of the most brilliant artists suffering some sort of mental illness rather than based on scientific proof. I wonder if this would also pertain to artistic savants.
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