Dr. Miller and the case of AA

For me, engaging in art projects such as painting and drawing has always been a source of catharsis. It is a time where I can turn off the stresses of everyday life and express thoughts and feelings through my creative outlet. What I did not realize is that artistic creativity may be using entirely different brain regions than one might use in their everyday, non-artistic lives. This finding is best expressed through Dr. Miller’s patient case AA. AA suffered from left fronto-insular degeneration which led to severe deficits in language. However, throughout her disease course and particularly around the beginnings of the disease she experienced great artistic creativity, particularly in her ability to create abstract and conceptual pieces as seen in her Bolero art (later she would cease to paint abstractly, focusing on replications). AA’s neuroimaging revealed that the non-dominant side of her brain, the right parietal cortex was normal to above normal during the peak of her creativity when all of the rest of her brain showed signs of atrophy. The researchers were able to identify four areas of the brain with increased grey matter including right intraparietal sulcus/superior parietal lobule (IPS/SPL), right superior temporal sulcus (STS),right parietal operculum; and the right lateral occipital cortex. These results are similar to another study in which they found musicians to have more cortex volume in their right superior parietal areas (Gaser &Schlaug, 2003, cited in Seeley article). Miller’s work on creativity in the brain, in particular his work with cases like AA suggests that creativity may be associated with specific areas of the brain. So the next time I take time out of my schedule to do something creative I can think of it as exercise for my non-dominant brain region.