Artistic tendencies linked to 'schizophrenia gene'

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17474-artistic-tendencies-linked-to-schizophrenia-gene.html

by codeodor • 17 years ago

4 1 17 years ago

indiejade• 17 years ago

This doesn't mean that psychosis and creativity are the same, though. "There's always been this slightly romantic idea that madness and genius are the flipside to the same coin. How much is that true? Madness is often madness and doesn't have as much genetic association with intelligence," Hall says.

Maybe madness is as a parallel to genius.

History has shown us that many highly gifted creative-types are pretty "crazy" by society's standard. So maybe it's that gift of being able to see the world in so many different ways, with so much possibility that's the link.

The article talks about the "schizophrenia gene' being possibly resultant from a mutation in genes:

The finding could help to explain why mutations that increase a person's risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar syndrome have been preserved, even preferred, during human evolution [snip]

I wonder what at what point does the environment change too quickly for the genes to keep up? Would make sense to preserve this in a certain number of individuals within a rapidly-changing population. Certainly there's some kind of adaptability factor.

Artistic tendencies linked to 'schizophrenia gene'

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