Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) patients receiving dopaminergic treatment may experience bursts of creativity. Although this phenomenon is sometimes recognized among patients and their clinicians, the association between dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) in PD patients and creativity remains underexplored. It is unclear, for instance, whether DRT affects creativity through convergent or divergent thinking, idea generation, or a general lack of inhibition. It is also unclear whether DRT only augments pre-existing creative attributes or generates creativity de novo. Here, we tested a group of PD patients when “on” and “off” dopaminergic treatment on a series of tests of creative problem-solving (Alternative Uses Task, Compound Remote Associates, Rebus Puzzles), and related their performance to a group of matched healthy controls as well as to their pre-PD creative skills and measures of inhibition/impulsivity. Results did not provide strong evidence that DRT improved creative thinking in PD patients. Rather, PD patients “on” medication showed less flexibility in divergent thinking, generated fewer ideas via insight, and showed worse performance in convergent thinking overall (by making more errors) than healthy controls. Pre-PD creative skills predicted enhanced flexibility and fluency in divergent thinking when PD patients were “on” medication. However, results on convergent thinking were mixed. Finally, PD patients who exhibited deficits in a measure of inhibitory control showed weaker convergent thinking while “on” medication, supporting previous evidence on the importance of inhibitory control in creative problem-solving. Altogether, results do not support the hypothesis that DRT promotes creative thinking in PD. We speculate that bursts of artistic production in PD are perhaps conflated with creativity due to lay conceptions of creativity (i.e., an art-bias).
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in the bilateral nigrostriatal pathway (e.g., Deumens et al, 2002)
The experimental literature using objective measures of creative thinking remains scarce. It has been unclear if artistic output by PD patients on Dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) reflects an objective enhancement in creativity defined by the features of novelty and originality or is in an increase in artistic production that meets lay conceptions of creativity
Because these results refer to only single-patient reports and a handful of unreplicated experimental studies, much remains unknown about bursts of putative creativity observed in some PD patients on DRT
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in the bilateral nigrostriatal pathway (e.g., Deumens et al, 2002) This pathway connects the substantia nigra pars compacta with the dorsal striatum (putamen-caudate complex) leading to reduced function and the characteristic symptoms of tremor and bradykinesia (Gröger et al, 2014). Physicians and doctors specialized in PD often report the emergence of a creative “talent” in PD patients after starting dopaminergic treatment. While this phenomenon is well-known among PD experts (Schrag and Trimble, 2001; Walker et al, 2006), it remains scientifically underexplored. We attempt to shed light on the observation of enhanced creativity in PD patients on DRT by adopting an experimental approach (a test re-test and match control group comparison) and a comprehensive battery of creativity (including divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and idea generation)
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