Creativity and madness, funny links biological.

Like Victor Hugo and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the painter Paul Gauguin was suffering from bipolar disorder.
Keywords: madness, bipolarity.

A study shows similarities between the brains of creative people and those suffering from mental illness.

The genius and madness have always seemed to have trouble connections, without that we can demonstrate clearly and mechanisms to perceive accurately. Many artists, writers, or politicians who have given their time, like Churchill, suffered from bipolar disorder, in a minor or major. The family of geniuses that have marked the history are sometimes affected by mental disorders. The case did not begin yesterday. Aristotle already asserted that "there is no genius without a touch of madness." For the first time, however, Swedish and American researchers have attempted to dissect the relationship between opaque creativity and mental illness. Their work is published this week in the journal PLoS One highlight of the characteristics common to persons of high ability "creative" and the mentally ill.
"The analysis of the major designers is often demonstrated a link with bipolar disorder," says Professor Jean Cottraux, honorary psychiatrist hospitals, the author ofTo each his creativity, Einstein, Mozart, Picasso, and we ...A book just published by Editions Odile Jacob. "But it is not enough to be bipolar to be great. Similarly all geniuses are not bipolar. "
In reaching these conclusions, the Swedish researchers from the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm with scientists from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders (Bethesda, USA), used the mass media. From 14 people who have passed tests assessing their creativity, researchers have spent their sieve of a brain positron emission tomography (which allows imaging of the brain quasimoléculaire). And they compared the results with those of people suffering from mental illness. "We studied in the brain to dopamine D2 receptors in healthy people, healthy, highly creative and showed that they were similar to those observed in people with schizophrenia," explains Professor Frederik Ullens (Institut Karolinska).
In particular, those with a high level of creativity would present a lower density of dopamine receptors in the thalamus, as some patients in contrast to healthy people, but not with a strong creativity. This characteristic brain could produce a greater flow of information through the thalamus, which would result in a highly creative extraordinary ability to make correlations unusual and patients to produce bizarre associations. Creativity is defined here as the ability to produce work that is both innovative and makes sense, as opposed to a production trivial or bizarre.

Genetics Unit:
Until now, the link between creation and mental disorders had been largely supported with bipolar disorder (also called manic depression) alternating phases of excitation and depression. Psychiatrists are also discovering a genetic unit between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (see our editions of Thursday, May 20). 'The incidence of mania was 0.8% in the general population, but 7% among eminent creators. Many artists like Balzac, Hemingway, Gauguin, Hugo, Malraux Frederic Dard suffered from any known or suspected bipolar disorder, said Professor Cottraux in his book. This would be the price to pay for exceptional destiny. "Undoubtedly, there is still much to say about creativity, which in essence surprising. "The creator is simply someone who is out of range and spectators jostled too complacent of the human comedy by giving them to do the unusual. The evolution of mankind from the beginning ... depends on creativity, "notes Professor Cottraux conclusion.