Insane and genius share the same gene

It has baffled people for eons why geniuses like Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath had displayed destructive behavior bordering on the insane.

Scientists seemed to have come up with an answer in a recent study published in the Nature Neuroscience, in which 82,292 Islandic people were compared to a group of 1,000 highly creative people like dancers, painters, writers and actors.

Creative people were at higher risk for schizophrenia compared to the general population, the study found, putting forth the hypothesis that to be creative one has to think differently from the crowd.

The study affirmed a 2009 report by a group from Semmelweis University in Hungary that creative people have a gene in common to psychosis and depression.

Called neuregulin 1, the gene plays a role in brain development but a variant of it is also associated with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

So, the next time somebody calls you insane, you may retort, “and a genius at that!” -end-