Creativity and the Brain

There has been some intriguing research into the human brain and how mood disorders enhance the creative mind. PBS News Hour aired a story 'Connecting Strength and Vulnerability to the Creative Brain', read the full story at this link -  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/connecting-strength-vulnerability-creative-brain/.


Dr. Nancy Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D, in the MRI lab at the University of Iowa Hospital Center has researched for decades on the physical differences in the brain. She uses neuroimaging to compare a normal educated human’s brain to that of a highly creative person with a mood disorder, especially schizophrenia.

To quote from the news story JUDY WOODRUFF: In the 1960s and ’70s, she took advantage of the University’s nationally renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop to study writers who taught there, like Kurt Vonnegut and John Cheever.
She wanted to see if there were a higher-than-usual occurrence of mental illness among them or their family members. Her study concluded that a full 80 percent had a form of mood disturbance at some point, compared with 30 percent of a control group."

Kurt Vonnegut’s son is very open about his disorder and put’s a plead out there in this quote;
DR. MARK VONNEGUT: I think, to the degree it helps get rid of the stigma of mental illness and gets people on board, you know, wrestling this beast together, that it’s a good thing.
So, by all means, let’s not have any more homeless vets, because there might be a Kurt Vonnegut in there. Let’s take care of them. Let’s take care of our people. There might be a Hemingway. There might be a van Gogh. There might — let’s take care of each other.








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