Abstract
ObjectiveDivergent thinking (DT) has attracted research interest because of its potential role in early diagnosis and rehabilitation programs for patients affected by neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, DT has received even more attention because of its proven relationship with cognitive reserve (CR) and the possibility of a standardized assessment. However, few studies have investigated this ability in dementia patients, and even less is known about patients affected by Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Thus, this study aims to investigate DT abilities in MCI patients.MethodsA total of 25 MCI patients and 25 healthy controls subjects (HC; from a random selection of 50) matched for age, gender, and educational level were enrolled. General cognitive functioning was measured by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), while the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) was selected to measure DT.ResultsMANOVA analysis did not reveal any significant differences in DT abilities between MCI patients and HC except for the figural indicator score. A logistic hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the figural indicator score added an 8% of accuracy in the prediction of the group variable over the general cognition measure (MoCA).ConclusionMCI patients seem to perform significantly worse than HC only in the figural DT score and this evidence has significant practical implications. First, that figural DT seemed to decrease even earlier than verbal DT and could therefore be taken into account for early diagnosis of MCI patients. On the contrary, the sparing of all the other DT skills (such as verbal DT skills, fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration) may suggest that, given its relationship with CR, verbal DT could instead be considered a possible target for prevention or early cognitive stimulation interventions.
Highlights
The connection between mental health and creativity has traditionally been studied in terms of qualitative examination of novel artistic productions of patients affected by neurodegenerative pathologies or through the evaluation of changes in the artistic style of artists who suffered from these diseases
Divergent Thinking (DT) it is widely employed in the experimental field because it is believed to elicit the cognitive processes that lead to creative idea generation (Barbot et al, 2019; Benedek and Fink, 2019) and because it can be measured by psychometrical tools (Torrance, 1988; Acar and Runco, 2019; Barbot et al, 2019)
Mild Cognitive Impairment patients were recruited at the Neuropsychology Service of the ASST Spedali Civili in Brescia (Italy), while Healthy Control subjects (HC) subjects were enrolled from a pool of older adult volunteers
Summary
The connection between mental health and creativity has traditionally been studied in terms of qualitative examination of novel artistic productions of patients affected by neurodegenerative pathologies or through the evaluation of changes in the artistic style of artists who suffered from these diseases (see Palmiero et al, 2012; Miller and Miller, 2013; Acosta, 2014; de Souza et al, 2014; Abraham, 2019 for a review). Going beyond an initial impetus to find a direct link between neurodegenerative diseases and creativity, it was recently observed that the “de novo” productions in this type of patient are rare and that almost none of them could be considered extraordinary (Abraham, 2019). DT it is widely employed in the experimental field because it is believed to elicit the cognitive processes that lead to creative idea generation (Barbot et al, 2019; Benedek and Fink, 2019) and because it can be measured by psychometrical tools (Torrance, 1988; Acar and Runco, 2019; Barbot et al, 2019)
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