Creatividad pictórica en demencia frontotemporal

Abstract

Some fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) patients may show remarkable preservation of their artistic creativity, and more often, in spite of the absence of an artistic background, others develop de novo artistic skills. Artistic creativity relies on complex mechanisms which encompass the revelation of an ability and a need to produce, an incubation period, insight and artistic production per se. Copying skills and visuo-perceptive functions are largely preserved in FTD. As many of those who develop artistic creativity have unilateral anterior temporal dysfunction together with impaired language and social function, their creativity has been conceptualised as a ‘paradoxical facilitation’, i.e., the release of right posterior neocortical areas, implicated in heteromodal and polysensory integration. However, although creativity stems as well from the confluence of several highly integrated functions such as working memory, sustained attention, planning, and cognitive flexibility, which are related to prefrontal functioning, its enhancement following prefrontal injury is puzzling. It may be explained by the role of hypofrontality in a type production which is more intuitive, less bound to cognitive, social and academic conventions. Prefrontal and language dysfunction may also explain the change in these patients’ viewpoints but also in their behaviour, marked by an urge to produce combined with a contraction of their scope of interest in the accomplishment of their artistic work. (Alzheimer. Real Invest Demenc. 2011;Supl:13-19)