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Artistic...

By Ann Althouse

... dementia.

From 1997 until her death 10 years later, Dr. Adams underwent periodic brain scans that gave her physicians remarkable insights to the changes in her brain.

?In 2000, she suddenly had a little trouble finding words,? her husband said. ?Although she was gifted in mathematics, she could no longer add single digit numbers. She was aware of what was happening to her. She would stamp her foot in frustration.?...

When artists suffer damage to the right posterior brain, they lose the ability to be creative, Dr. Miller said. Dr. Adams?s story is the opposite. Her case and others suggest that artists in general exhibit more right posterior brain dominance. In a healthy brain, these areas help integrate multisensory perception. Colors, sounds, touch and space are intertwined in novel ways. But these posterior regions are usually inhibited by the dominant frontal cortex, he said. When they are released, creativity emerges.

What does this say about the difference between artists and mathematicians with healthy brains?

ADDED: Neo-neocon talks about Dr. Adams and her demented art.

Full post as published by Althouse on April 08, 2008 (boomark / email).