We all know the stereotype: The artist, dark and brooding, a mad genius, tormented by their inner demons. The notion is certainly backed up by the tragic stories of many creative types, like Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, and Kurt Cobain. But is this just finding a pattern where there truly is none?
As it turns out, many studies have focused on the relationship between creativity and mental illness—and have indeed linked the two together, especially in regards to major depressive disorder and bipolar depression.
For example, in 1987, famous neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen studied 30 famous authors from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (including sci-fi author Kurt Vonnegut) and compared them to 30 controls, along with both groups’ first-degree relatives. The authors by far had the greater rate of mood disorder occurrence by 50% as compared to the controls, depression alone being 20% higher. Further, the author’s relatives had a greater incidence of these disorders, suggesting that creativity and depression are at least partially genetic.
Thirty famous people don’t make for a really strong study, so in 1994 a different group studied 291 world-famous men: scientists and inventors, thinkers and scholars, statesmen and national leaders, painters and sculptors, composers, novelists, and playwrights. Of these professions, depressive conditions and alcoholism were strikingly prevalent in writers and artists.
Probably the largest study was conducted in 2011, and examined around 300,000 people with severe mental disorders, as well as their families. The individuals with bipolar disorder—along with their healthy siblings—were far overrepresented in creative professions.
So scientists know there must be some genetic tie in all of this, and thanks to a 2009 study there is a good candidate: a mutation of a gene known as Neuregulin 1. This gene is associated with high intellectual and academic performance—and these traits are associated with something known as the TIT genotype, which was shown to be related to psychosis and other mental disorders.
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