Making Connections Between Art, Manic-Depressive Illness, and Frontotemporal Dementia

"And Something's odd - within -

That person that I was -

And this One - do not feel the same -

Could it be Madness - this?"

-Emily Dickinson

Those of us who enjoy the arts, either as participants or avid fans of the creative process, are very much aware of the so-called "myth of the artist" and other similar stereotypical sketches that link the artistic genius to an inner, emotional world of tumultuous highs, lows, and sheer "madness". Mental illness, particularly manic depression, has somehow become an inseparable part of the successful artist's experience in the romanticized biographies of famous poets, painters, and musicians of our time. In her book, Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison lends some evidence to this widely-recognized cultural myth, and exposes a fascinating relationship between the mood cycles involved with manic depression and the creative process.

Despite her convincing results, Jamison's approach does not necessarily offer any particular insight about why this correlation exists, or where creativity actually originates in the brain. In order to paint a more complete picture, so to speak, of what occurs inside the brain during the creative process, it seems that scientists should take advantage of the advances in brain imaging technologies that can be performed on healthy control subjects, as well as those who may be suffering from manic-depressive illness or other conditions.

Interestingly enough, recent studies by Dr. Bruce Miller, MD, a neurologist from the University of California, San Francisco, involving patients who suffer from frontotemporal dementia, approach the issue of creativity and the brain from a more functionalist perspective. As a result of FTD, a condition proven by SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) images of the patient's brains, Miller noticed that his patients seemed to spontaneously develop artistic talents and creative interests they had never possessed before (5).

Combining Jamison's research along with Miller's new foray into studying creativity via brain imaging, I feel it is possible to begin to work toward constructing a tentative neurobiological explanation of creativity. In this final paper, I will first present a review of Jamison's book on manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament, discussing her method, her evidence, and her conclusions. Next, I will introduce Miller's research, and attempt to show how his functionalist approach tackles some of the unanswered questions that Jamison's research leaves up for grabs. It is my belief that a synthesis of these two approaches to the question of how