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| | | From: JimJim (Original Message) | Sent: 11/27/2006 10:55 AM |
The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius A review of the book "The Creating Brain: the Neuroscience of Genius" by the well-known psychiatry researcher Nancy Andreason was recently published in the UK medical journal "The Lancet". Dr. Andreason is "one of the developers of the US psychiatrists' bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the author of some accessible books on the neuroscience of mental illness. Now, in keeping with the neurosciences' onward march into territory previously regarded as outside their terrain of competence, Andreasen has turned her attention from the mentally distressed to the mentally super-productive. What constitutes creativity, and what can neuroscience say about it?" "Andreasen reviews the early anecdotal and more systematic studies, before turning to her own surveys of the psychiatric status of members of an Iowa writers' workshop. Here she found mood disorders (such as bipolar disorder) were fairly common but there was no sign of schizophrenia. This finding, and the other studies she cites, satisfactorily refutes the attempts by Tim Crow, Daniel Nettle, and others in recent years to claim schizophrenia as the genetic downside of an evolutionary drive towards creativity." The review concludes with the statement "for those interested in this subject or for parents who aspire for the best for their offspring and want some encouragement in how to achieve it, The Creating Brain makes an enjoyable read." The book can be purchased at Amazon and other book stores: The Creating Brain: the Neuroscience of Genius .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... | 4 of 5 people found the following review helpful: Infoteresting, June 18, 2006
'The Creating Brain' book is about creativity, the person and the process involved. Nancy also talks about how creative people have a certain personality which could affect their mental behavior.
The book starts with how most creative ideas sprang into te select minds while in 'bed, bath or bus'- Kekule, Archimedes,Poincare int he order fo their situation.
The chapter on five creative persons gives a first account of the creative person at their act.
A very interesting chapter of the book is the one in which Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo are studied to see how nature (Genes. The concept of 'Hereditary Genius' and Francis Galton's contribution of Scatter Plots and Unique finger prints theory , his misused theory of eugenics was interesting to know) and nurture (the need for a mentor) are both part in bringing about a persons creativity to light.
The last chapter deals with how to build a better brain with exercises like learning something new everyday since its associating different domains which has been seen as a bed for creativity, active reading with a list of books for children of different ages. | .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................  | 5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:  Misleading title, disappointing book, June 15, 2006
I was intrigued by the title of this book and the background of the author. The book turned out to be a disappointment. There were only a few insights from neuroscience, and the synthesis based on the biography of geniuses was superficial, leading to somewhat obvious conclusions. While an integrative approach to writing on such a complex topic must be appreciated, the balance of the content could have been more in favor of scientific findings. Also, a slightly irritating aspect is the author's desire to communicate her likeness to the creative people whom she describes. The book is easy to read, though, the content could have been presented in an article of a few pages. language=Javascript1.1 type=text/javascript>
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| | | From: JimJim | Sent: 11/27/2006 10:56 AM |
What do Neil Simon (playwright), Mozart (music composer), and Friedrich Kekule (organic chemist) have in common? ANSWER: Each was considered to be a creative genius.
This slim book by Dr. Nancy Andreasen attempts to explain how the above people and those like them create great works of art and come up with original ideas in the sciences. Does their creative genius reside in their neuroanatomy?
Andreasen explains more about her book:
"[My] book is primarily about extraordinary creativity. I wanted to write about how extremely gifted people have created things that have made our lives, our society, and our civilization richer and more beautiful."
(1) THE NATURE OF CREATIVITY
The evolution of concepts of creativity; Creativity vs intelligence; Creativity and society: who decides?; What is creativity.
(2) UNDERSTANDING THE CREATIVE PERSON AND THE CREATIVE PROCSS
The scientific study of creativity; The creative person; The creative process; The case-study method and introspective descriptions of the creative process; Five introspective accounts (written by five people who represent extraordinary creativity).
(3) HOW DOES THE BRAIN CREATE?
Creativity and the brain; How does the brain think?; A primer of brain anatomy; The complexity of brain networks; The human brain as a self-organizing system; What is human thought?; Unconscious thought; The neural basis of extraordinary creativity.
(4) GENIUS AND INSANITY
Early explorations of genius and insanity: the anecdotal era; Improving diagnostic precision: the quantitative era; Is there a connection between creativity and schizophrenia?; Mental illness, creativity, and the brain; What are the effects of treating mental illness in creative people?
(5) WHAT CREATES THE CREATIVE BRAIN?
The role of nurture; Renaissance Florence as a Lab for the case study of nature and nurture (note that Andreasen's PhD is in Renaissance Literature); What kind of environment nurtures Creativity?; The role of nature: innate gifts and hereditary factors; Nature vs nurture: What creates the creative brain?
(6) BUILDING BETTER BRAINS
What is brain plasticity?; Plasticity and the creative brain; Ordinary creativity and extraordinary creativity; (Creative enhancing) mental exercises for adults; Tips for teaching tots; The creating brain: Quo Vadis.
If you peruse the above chapter subsections, you will find that the actual amount of neuroscience presented in this book is minimal. This is actually justified since the amount of research in this area is slim. What Andreasen does is actually concentrate on the mind rather than to analyze only the brain in order to understand creativity.
This book contains almost 35 black and white photos and illustrations, most of which I found interesting.
Don't worry! This book is easy to read. You don't have to have a PhD to understand it.
There are a few problems with this book. I will state three that I consider major ones:
(i) This book's title is "The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of [Creative] Genius." As explained above, this book deals more with the mind than with the brain. As well, the neuroscience in this book is minimal. (Some people may get angry at this expecting the entire book to be about the brain and neuroscience. Personally, I was not angry but surprised.) I think a more accurate title would have been: "The Creating Mind: With Some Neuroscience Explaining Creative Genius."
(ii) The preface made me wince. Andreasen begins it with "When I was a kindergartener, I was IQ-tested and declared a genius." She then goes on and briefly describes her life with this label. Why?
(iii) The author attempts to imply that Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein suffered from mental illness. Maybe she's justified in saying this since she has a degree in psychiatry. However, one of my degrees is in psychology and I would say that she is reading too much into Newton's and Einstein's idiosyncrasies.
Finally, I had a difficult time deciding how to rate this book. I decided I would rate this book on the more accurate title that I mentioned in (i) above. Some people might disagree with me on doing this but I feel the information presented in this book is important to know with respect to creativity.
In conclusion, despite some problems, I feel that this book does an adequate job in explaining extraordinary creativity.
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