Dopamine, Creativity and Schizophrenia

<i>"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box," says Dr Ullén about his new findings.</i><p>That really resonates with me. My most creative, disruptive insight only really comes to me when I'm teetering on the edge. That said, I definitely have to pull back from the edge before i can do anything useful or sustainable with it. Anyone else feel the same way?

I'm confused. The article says that creativity is associated with low thalamic D2 receptor density, and that the thalamus "filters" signals to the rest of the brain, so they speculate that diminished activity therein results in less filtering and more creativity, and schizophrenia is a more severe form of this. That's fine until you consider that antipsychotics work by <i>blocking</i> dopaminergic activity, which would exacerbate the pathology rather than repair it. My understanding was that dopamine is associated with increased dopamine receptor binding in the prefrontal cortex (which is consistent with the observed mechanism of action for antipsychotics), and the lower thalamus receptor densities were simply due to downregulation caused by the excessive endogenous dopamine. Can someone with more expertise clarify?

I've known both schizophrenics and artists in my personal life and I'd say one thing they have in common is an ability for their thought processes to "color outside the lines", jump the tracks, etc. But for healthy artists they have a greater ability to recognize it and control it and channel to productive ends, whereas the schizophrenic goes off into wild goose chases, endless philosophical thinking dead ends, and outright delusions unbacked by externally confirmable observations.<p>Speaking of the dopamine connection, there has been an increasing body of evidence and belief within the scientific community studying schizophrenia that the dopamine/receptor activity is just a symptom or downstream effect and that the root cause may be related to a virus that has infected the brain's tissue or blood supply. Possibly an endogenous virus embedded in the DNA, that had previously been considered part of the inactive "junk" DNA.

It's almost like there is an attempt to normalize all of human behavior, nearly to a borg-like state but with a "I am human!!" undertone. Neurotypical for the win, is the motto.

I go to the site and see a doc. Clicking on download, I'm taken to a scribd sign-up page.<p>Is there a reason I should sign up for Scribd because somebody wants to share material with me on the internet?<p>Sorry. I lost interest at that point.

i came up with a term for this ability to be both very creative and loose and random while also being able to switch into a very logical, analytical, judgemental, executive mindset:<p>groglogic<p>where the grog refers to drunkeness or sleepiness/dreams

Anecdote: I've been regarded as a good programmer, and my sister is schizoaffective.