Tis a Fine Line Indeed ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
> Date: September 13, 2005 11:09:29 AM PDT
> To: Dave <dave () farber net>
> Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: Tis a Fine Line Indeed ...
>
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/dzahc>
> Fine Line Revealed Between Creativity and Insanity
> Ker Than
> LiveScience Staff Writer
> LiveScience.comWed Sep 7, 4:00 PM ET
>
> 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.
>
> In the spectrum between normal and insane, schizotypes generally fall
> somewhere in the middle. While they do not suffer many of the symptoms
> affecting schizophrenics, including paranoia, hallucinations and
> incoherent thoughts, schizotypes often exhibit their own  
> eccentricities.
>
> "They may dress or carry themselves in a strange way," says Bradley
> Folley, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt
> University in Tennessee and the lead author of the study. "They're not
> abnormal, they live normal lives but they often have idiosyncratic  
> ways
> of thinking. Certain things may have special meaning for them or they
> may be more spiritually attuned."
>
> Problem solving
>
> The link between creativity and psychosis has largely been based on
> anecdotal evidence and correlation studies. The Vanderbilt study is  
> the
> first to investigate the creative process experimentally using
> brain-imaging techniques.
>
> The researchers defined creativity as the ability to generate  
> something
> new and useful from existing products or ideas.
>
> "Creativity at its base is associative," Folley told LiveScience.  
> "It's
> taking things that you might see and pass by everyday and using  
> them in
> a novel way to solve a new problem."
>
> The researchers conducted two experiments to compare the creative
> thinking processes of schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal control
> subjects.
>
> In the first experiment, subjects were shown a variety of household
> objects and asked to come up with new functions for them.
>
> For example, all three groups would be asked to come up with possible
> uses for a needle and thread. While the normal and schizophrenic
> controls came up with pretty typical responses like sewing or  
> stitching,
> one schizotype said that if a person was poor but wanted to get  
> engaged,
> he could use the thread to make a ring and use the needle to write "I
> Love You," in the sand.
>
> Picture this
>
> In the second experiment, the three groups were again asked to come up
> with creative uses for everyday objects, but this time their brains  
> were
> monitored using a brain-imaging technique called near-infrared optical
> spectroscopy.
>
> The scans showed that both sides of the brain in all three groups were
> active when making novel associations. However, in the brains of
> schizotypes, the activation of the right hemisphere was much higher
> compared to brains of the control subjects.
>
> Folley speculates that what may be happening is that schizotypes may
> either have more access to the right hemisphere than the average
> population or there may be more efficient communication between the  
> two
> hemispheres.
>
> The finding is detailed online in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

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