Thinking outside the box

Highly creative people have a similar dopamine system to people with schizophrenia according to new research from the Karolinska Institute.

Creativity is linked to a slightly higher risk of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, while high creative skills have been shown to be more common in people who have a mental illness in the family – and these similarities now have scientific backing.

“We have studied the brain and the dopamine D2 receptors, and have shown that the dopamine system of healthy, highly creative people is similar to that found in people with schizophrenia,” said associate professor Fredrik Ullén from the department of women’s and children’s health.

Dr Ullén measured the creativity of healthy individuals using divergent psychological tests in which the task was to find as many different solutions to a problem.

“The study shows that highly creative people who did well on the divergent tests had a lower density of D2 receptors in the thalamus than less creative people,” Ullén said, “Schizophrenics are also known to have low density D2 in this part of the brain suggesting a cause of the link between mental illness and creativity.”

Ullén thinks fewer receptors in the thalamus – the part of the brain which filters information and is responsible for cognition and reasoning – means a lower degree of signal filtering and a higher flow of information. He believes this could be a possible mechanism behind the ability of highly creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a problem-solving situation and bizarre associations found in the mentally ill.

“Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box” Ullén said.