Public opinion has long noted the connection between mental health (or rather, ill health) and creativity. It seems that this connection really exists, at the level of brain physiology
A number of psychological studies have shown that high creativity is indeed more common in people whose close relatives suffered from mental illness.
Truly creative people are thought to have an increased risk of schizophrenia and bipolar personality disorder. And in general, some psychological features, such as the formation of unexpected associative connections, are expressed precisely in schizophrenics - and in healthy people with an increased "creative streak". Now this connection has been established at the molecular level as well.
Swedish scientists, working under the guidance of Professor Fredrik Ullén, investigated dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is one of the most important components of the internal reward system. To put it simply, it evokes positive feelings and is thrown out by the brain to develop a positive reaction in itself - like feeding during dog training. By the way, it is in the dopamine system that many drugs are embedded, either by themselves binding to dopamine receptors and stimulating them (like amphetamine), or by maintaining an unnaturally high level of dopamine (like cocaine).
The "cycle" of dopamine in the brain is organized in 5 different ways, and for patients with schizophrenia, a violation of their normal functioning is shown. They also have a pathology of one of the 5 types of dopamine receptors, D 2, which are just involved in the work of the reinforcement mechanism.
It was the D 2 receptors that became the object of study by Swedish scientists, who were able to show that abnormalities in their work are characteristic not only of patients, but also of healthy people who exhibit increased creative inclinations. The creative abilities of the experiment participants were assessed in the course of divergent psychological tests, in which it is required to find the maximum number of different solutions to one problem.
The people who showed the best results in this test have a reduced density of D 2 receptors in the thalamus than less creative individuals. It is this feature that is characteristic of schizophrenics as well. However, how exactly one is connected with the other, and how one follows from the other, is still completely incomprehensible.
The thalamus itself acts as a kind of "center for collecting and primary processing of information," here nerve endings from the sense organs converge and then redistributed to the desired parts of the brain. It is believed that it plays a key role in the formation of memory, since if this area is damaged, a person loses the ability to remember new information.
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Professor Ullen suggests that the reduced number of D 2 receptors in the thalamus results in less "efficient" filtering of incoming information. This can lead to the fact that the brain of sick and creative people forms such associations that we, healthy and boring people, seem completely unexpected - the corresponding information simply "does not reach" our brain.
In general, schizophrenia is an extremely interesting and mysterious disease. Even at the genetic level, it seems to cover dozens of genes. It is an extremely complex disease that causes manias and phobias, hallucinations and impaired thinking. Its nature still remains a mystery to science - scientists today are discussing the role of organic disorders and genetics in the development of schizophrenia. Meanwhile, the problem is by no means marginal: at least 1% of the world's adult population suffers from this disease.
Some experts believed that genetic research would help isolate a gene or a set of genes, mutations in which lead to the development of the disease. But the recent results of the work of two groups of scientists at once show that the "genetic signature" of schizophrenia is much more complicated. The recorded changes affect dozens or even hundreds of genes, the work of which is disrupted by insertions or deletions (drops) of DNA fragments.
Such mutations can also be found in ordinary people - but they are much more common in schizophrenics. After analyzing the DNA of 150 patients and 268 healthy people, scientists found them in 15% of schizophrenics and only in 5% of healthy people. And if we are talking about patients from childhood, then insertions and deletions are found already in 20%. Moreover, each such mutation is unique, so that the entire set of them is unique for each patient. But we can say for sure that most of the mutated genes are in one way or another associated with the development and life of brain tissue.
The study covered 24 genes, but scientists are confident that it is worth talking about a much larger number, which should be confirmed by further research.
