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Creativity may increase risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder

Creativity may be a predictor of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as recent study findings indicate that creative individuals were more likely to have one of the disorders.

“Psychological theories propose that the schizophrenic spectrum is accompanied by a decrease in practical reasoning, as schizophrenia patients outperform controls in logical deduction that is in conflict with practical reasoning. Furthermore, it has been suggested that those less restrained by practical cognitive styles may have an advantage in artistic occupations,” study researcher Robert A. Power, MD, of deCODE Genetics and King’s College London, and colleagues wrote. “These results provide support for the notion that creativity and psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, share psychological attributes.”

To determine associations between creativity, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and whether genetics influenced those associations, researchers assessed genetic risk profiles for 86,292 individuals from the general Icelandic population.

Researchers classified creative individuals “as those belonging to the national artistic societies of actors, dancers, musicians, visual artists and writers.”

Schizophrenia and bipolar polygenic risk scores were associated with creativity and explained 0.24% and 0.26% of the variance of creativity, respectively.

In an analysis including both scores as predictors of creativity, schizophrenia and bipolar polygenic risk scores were significantly associated with being an artist. Similar associations were found for being an actor, dancer, musician, visual artist and writer.

“Our study lends support to direct influences of genetic factors on creativity as opposed to sharing an environment with individuals with psychosis influencing creative aptitude. Thus, the main finding presented here is that creativity, conferred, at least in part, by common genetic variants, comes with an increased risk of psychiatric disorders conferred by the same genetic variants,” Power and colleagues wrote. “How this genetic overlap fits into evolutionary models of disease persistence remains to be determined.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: Please see the full study for a list of the authors’ relevant financial disclosures.