How Very Odd -- Madness and Creativity

*
This article by Ker Than of LiveScience discusses the link between madness and creativity. The article notes:

History suggests that the line between creativity and madness is a fine one, but a small group of people known as schizotypes are able to walk it with few problems and even benefit from it.

A new study confirms that their enhanced creativity may come from using more of the right side of the brain than the rest of us.

The study in question (reported in the journal Schizophrenia Research) utilized, among other techniques, a method called near-infrared optical spectroscopy to analyze subjects' brains during problem-solving. The activation of the right side of the brain in the schizotypes (whose group had already demonstrated a greater degree of creativity when brainstorming) was notably greater than that of the normal and schizophrenic groups.

For another perspective on this possible connection, I would like to recommend Kay Redfield Jamison's book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Temperament and personal drive have, I suspect, a great deal to do with creative gifts and the will -- the drive -- to use them.

AL, Bio, CPS, Psych, Soc
Future Imperative