Creativity and Neurodegenerative Disease

Dr. Miller’s talk on creativity associated with neurodegenerative diseases raised many interesting points. The fact that art is uniquely human and only arose for the first time about 40,000 years ago suggests that its neural correlates reside in those parts of the brain that evolved last and made us into the species we are today. Indeed, art does seem to come, at least in part, from the prefrontal cortex, which is substantially larger in humans than in any other animal. In class, we have talked about the role of the prefrontal cortex in decision making, task switching, monitoring performance, and other such executive functions. It is interesting then that art should also arise from this area. The anterior temporal lobes also play a large role in producing art. This area contains many of the language centers, so it is not so surprising that art, which can be described as a form of language, should be associated with this area.
Dr. Miller has studied frontotemporal dementia patients in relation to creativity because their neurodegeneration can stimulate an obsession with the visual and bestow a previously undiscovered creativity and artistic talent. It’s fascinating that the areas that are correlated with producing art are the same areas affected in FTD. Dr. Miller suggested that degeneration in these parts of the brain in the left hemisphere is what causes this visual creativity. Since the left hemisphere is thought to be more logical and linguistic, as opposed to its conceptual and emotional counterpart, perhaps degeneration in the left can liberate the right to freely express its view of the world. I had always thought that neurodegenerative diseases were very diffuse and non-selective, but Dr. Miller talked about how the misfolded protein causes a kind of Hebbian degeneration in which very specific neural networks are affected. That fact makes the studying of these patients extremely valuable in their capacity to show us just how the brain works.