There IS a link between genius and madness - but we don't know why we evolved this 'gift'

There IS a link between creative genius and madness - with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder frequent in highly creative and intelligent people.
The idea was investigated by a panel of scientists who had all suffered some form of mental disorder.
Kay Redfield Jamison of John Hopkins school of Medicine, who suffers from bipolar disorder, said that intelligence tests on Swedish 16-year-olds had shown that highly intelligent children were most likely to go on to develop the disorder.
'They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder,' says Jamison.
Jamison has devoted her life to researching and writing about bipolar disorder, since being diagnosed with it herself in young adulthood.
In the discussion at New York's World Science Fair, the panel discussed more than 20 papers which made an explicit link between high intelligence and creativity.
Painter Van Gogh and author Jack Kerouac were both hailed as geniuses but displayed self-destructive behaviour.
What's less clear is why human beings might have evolved this trait.


www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2154393/There-IS-link-genius-madness-claim-scientists--dont-know-evolved-gift.html

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