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To feel subtly, to live vividly, to create, to burn… The connection between the thinking and behavior of creative natures and the way of life of people with mental disabilities was known before. The new study only found a link at the genetic level.
It has long been noted that creativity and mental disorders have common features; there have been many mentally ill creators in history, it is enough to recall, for example, Vincent van Gogh. Previous studies have shown that mental illnesses, especially bipolar disorder, are more likely to affect people in creative professions. However, until now it has not been clear whether this is influenced by genes, or simply by external factors and socioeconomic status.
Creativity is not easy to give a precise definition, but here is one of them: a creative person tends to look for innovative approaches to solving problems, to think unusually. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are characterized by impaired thinking and emotions, which means that the thinking and emotional processes in the brain are not typical.
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Scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London took information from a genetic database about 86292 inhabitants of Iceland. Creative personalities were those who belonged to national associations of representatives of the relevant professions: actors, musicians, writers, artists, designers, dancers.
It turned out that genetic risk factors in representatives of these professions were significantly higher than average. On a risk scale, they are located approximately in the middle between healthy “uncreative” and mentally ill people.
These data suggest that the risks of developing mental illness and creativity are linked precisely at the genetic level.
“We don’t know much about the biological basis for mental disorders. One popular theory is that these disorders represent an extreme manifestation of the normal spectrum of human behavior rather than qualitatively different conditions. By learning more about what healthy processes (such as creative thinking) share biological roots with mental illness, we can better understand the mechanisms behind these illnesses. Our results show that creative individuals’ propensity for unusual thinking may be genetically determined, and in some cases, when exposed to adverse biological and other factors, this may contribute to the development of mental disorders, ”concludes lead author of the study Robert Power (Robert Power).
Подробнее см. R. Power et al. «Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder predict creativity», Nature Neuroscience, 2015.
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