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12 - Paradoxical creativity and adjustment in neurological conditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2011

By
Indre V. Viskontas  and
Bruce L. Miller
Edited by
Narinder Kapur
With
Alvaro Pascual-Leone ,
Vilayanur Ramachandran ,
Jonathan Cole ,
Sergio Della Sala ,
Tom Manly  and
Andrew Mayes
Foreword by
Oliver Sacks
Indre V. Viskontas
Affiliation:
University of California
Bruce L. Miller
Affiliation:
University of California
Narinder Kapur
Affiliation:
University College London
Alvaro Pascual-Leone
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Vilayanur Ramachandran
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Jonathan Cole
Affiliation:
University of Bournemouth
Sergio Della Sala
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Tom Manly
Affiliation:
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
Andrew Mayes
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Oliver Sacks
Affiliation:
Columbia University Medical Center
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Summary

Summary

In recent years, the paradoxical occurrence of creativity and related behaviours in patients with neurological conditions has begun to gain attention. Relevant examples include the emergence of previously unrecognized visual and musical creativity in the context of the neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia, and also in some cases of stroke. The description of these phenomena has helped to influence models of the neural underpinnings of creativity. Specifically, it is possible that down-regulation of frontal or anterior temporal function may enable spontaneous creative insights that originate in other regions of the brain. However, other explanations may also be tenable, and further research needs to be carried out to gauge why certain individuals and not others with neurological conditions become creative, and how this enhanced creativity may be understood in terms of specific cognitive processes and neural systems.

Introduction

Neurological conditions are inevitably accompanied by deficits, disabilities and handicaps – problems that are emphasized by the patients' loved ones, clinicians and researchers alike. In rare instances, however, neurological changes have led to observations of enhanced function, including the domain of creativity. For example, Lythgoe and colleagues described a patient who, following a subarachnoid haemorrhage, showed an all-encompassing compulsion to sculpt, draw and paint, having shown no premorbid interest in art (Lythgoe et al.,2005). Defining and measuring creativity has proven to be a monumental task, and taken together with the considerable individual differences in response to brain damage, evidence unambiguously demonstrating increased creativity is scarce.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Paradoxical Brain , pp. 221 - 233
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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