With every hour passing, medicine and human sciences make fascinating
steps that build up to extend the bridge between us and the secrets of
the absolute wonder created by God which is our human brain.
Today,
research in the field of mental illnesses is nonstop. People who suffer
from mental sicknesses including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,
Schizophrenia, Autism, Bipolar Disorder and many others have been
subject to neurologists’ and psychologists’ zealous studies.
Let’s
take a moment to ask ourselves, are people who suffer from such
diseases really underprivileged? Is it a completely dark state with no
way out or a glimmer of hope? The answer is a definite negative.
Why,
you ask? It’s because as much as these illnesses hold of pain and
turmoil for the patients; it also holds a great, unmistakable deal of
positive traits that can lead the patient to discover the genius within
him/her.
In every culture, there exists a widespread stereotype
known as “The Tortured Artist”. This kind of intellect, according to the
stereotype, often feels alienated and misunderstood by the society
which doesn’t appreciate him/her or what he/she does. The tortured
artist is always ridden by inner conflicts and feelings of frustration
and insufficiency.
However; the notion of a link between "madness"
and "genius" goes way back as ancient as the time of Aristotle. During
the Romantic era in Europe, toward the end of the 18th
century, this idea of art and psychotic patients was reinforced.
Individuals with mental issues were believed to have the capacity to see
the world in a new, unusual and original way, in other words, to see
things that normal humans cannot.
Geniuses with Neurological Disorders
Examples of intellects responsible for historic creative
achievements, famous or not, are all around us. Ludwig van Beethoven,
the famous German musician suffered from bipolar disorder, yet he
possessed such creative power that allowed him to compose pieces that
changed classical music forever. He was a child prodigy, although he had
“manic” episodes that seemed to fuel his creativity.
During times
of psychological torment and extreme suffering, he wrote fantastic
pieces. It took him 12 years to finish his last 9th Symphony while he suffered from deafness!
Another
example is John Forbes Nash, American Nobel Prize Winner in
mathematics, who suffered from Schizophrenia. His life story and
life-long battle was documented in the book "A Beautiful Mind," by
Sylvia Nasar, which was later made into a movie of the same name.
British
Autistic architectural artist, Stephen Wiltshire, was able to draw the
Manhattan skyline only from his photographic memory after a helicopter
flight over the city. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of three,
and has an unusually powerful photographic memory that he has applied to
rendering cityscapes, like London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome, Madrid,
Frankfurt, Dubai, and Jerusalem.
There are many other examples,
like Isaac Newton, the English physicist who is considered to be one of
the most influential scientists, suffered from Bipolar Disorder, Vincent
Van Gogh, the famous Dutch painter had clinical depression, and Sylvia
Plath, the great American writer, who also suffered from clinical
depression and suicidal tendencies. And the list goes on.
Such
numerous illustrations of the undeniable link between genius and madness
lead us to think that there must be a biological connection between
these tormented yet brilliant minds.
A study by Arnold Ludwig, a
professor of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky, explored how
mental illness is linked with an individual’s influence on society.
Ludwig
examined the lives of 1,004 well-known individuals through history,
which confirmed that there was a noticeably higher existence of mental
illness in individuals who were poets, fiction writers, visual artists,
musicians and composers, and those involved in theatre, than in other
professions, such as business, exploration, or the military. Many
studies like this were conducted, however; they lacked evidence as to
how creativity and mental illness are connected.
It is important
to point out that while a connection exists between these two traits, it
is not always present. Creativity can exist without mental illness, and
vice versa.
Biological Story Behind it
To be able to legitimately prove their findings, researchers started
to identify the neurological similarities between mental illnesses and
the creative thought process.
The frontal lobe of the brain, which
is the main connection between the temporal and parietal lobes, is
where knowledge and concepts are kept. Unnatural occurrences in the
frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex in particular, are characteristics
of schizophrenia and depression.
Hyperactivity in this part causes
the patient to initiate unusual connections between normally unrelated
things or ideas, in turn simulating the delusions of the paranoid
schizophrenic or maniac behavior. Schizophrenia is linked to high levels
of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, causing delusions,
hallucinations, and chaotic thought processes.
Similarly, manic
depression may involve varying levels of norepinephrine in the frontal
lobe; high levels of which are responsible for depression symptoms,
while low levels result in novel connectivity in the frontal lobe, and
creative or unusual ideas.
According to numerous medical studies,
creative thinking, like manic depression and schizophrenia, also
involves unusual frontal lobe behavior. Frontal lobe deficiency may
decrease idea production.
Similarly, another study supports the
ones mentioned above and further proves that unusual activity in the
frontal lobe could be responsible for interference of the information
stored in the parietal and temporal lobes in innovative ways.
Mentally-disordered Minds Benefit their Societies
Even
though, it’s philosophically and medically proven that a lot of
individuals with psychological problems can develop or already have
astonishing talents, the culture of trying to help those patients by
uncovering their talents is scarcely spread in our world, and they’re
automatically believed to be destined to be underprivileged – without a
positive output of their illness.
There are many ways through
which we can help lessen the amount of suffering these patients go
through and help them find a bright side to their illness. Doctors need
to focus more on developing the hidden talents inside those patients'
brains instead of just relying on pills and medication that might hinder
the creative thought process that could hold potential of lots of
special things those patients can do.
The research in the field of
neuropsychology never stops, in hopes that in the soon future, we will
be
able to give and receive more from the mentally-ill.
:The source
