Is there really a link between genius and madness? A study of 14,658 twins has just revealed a surprise.

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Aristotle once said that “no great mind ever existed without a touch of madness.” Although this millennia-old hypothesis does not stand up to modern scientific scrutiny, researchers are interested in exploring the relationship between artistic and scientific creativity and mental health. While there are many well-known artists who have publicly struggled with mental health (Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear, after all), these cases are purely anecdotal. Does the scientific evidence suggest there actually is a correlation?

Getting closer to an answer to this age-old question was the main goal of a new study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry which was led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“There is a long-standing idea that genius and ‘madness’ go hand in hand, especially in creative fields, with many famous artists believed to have struggled with mental health issues,” said Miriam A. Mosing of Karolinska Institutet, co-lead author of the study. Medical Xpress. “However, empirical evidence for this association remains mixed.”

To even attempt to understand this possible mental correlation, the team needed an extremely large data set. Fortunately, they were able to examine two surveys conducted in 2012-2013 and 2022-2023 that collected mental health data from 14,658 twins in Sweden, less than half of whom participated in both surveys. The first survey assessed artistic and scientific achievements and noted self-reported psychiatric symptoms and openness to experience, while the second tracked divergent thinking, or the ability to solve complex problems.

“This idea is fueled by numerous anecdotal examples of famous creators with eccentric personalities and psychiatric problems, from Vincent van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway to Virginia Woolf and Camille Claudel,” the authors write in the study. “Research including systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggests that creativity and engagement in creative activities are associated with increased risk of mental health problems.”

The study also aimed to assess the role that genetics and environment play on this correlation, and this is where the twins aspect of the data set comes in handy. With identical twins, for example, researchers were able to effectively rule out genetic and environmental factors and assess whether associations persisted.

They found that artistic creativity had a positive correlation with poorer mental health, just as previous studies indicated. However, scientific creativity does not have a similar correlation. One theory, proposed by the authors, suggests that scientific environments are “more unforgiving” towards mental health problems than artistic environments, leading to indirect selection processes. Interestingly, the team Also found a positive correlation between depressive symptoms and open-mindedness, suggesting that an introspective personality could lead to questioning social norms. They also noted that genes appeared to play an important role.

“Although our study suggests the importance of genes, it does not mean that the environment is not important,” Penghao Xia of the Max Planck Institute, lead author of the study, told Medical XPress. “Therefore, we still need to investigate other explanations for the association.”

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