Alanna  Morton  

 

 

Annotated  Bibliography    

 

 

 

 

What  is  the  Connection  Between  Schizophrenia  and  Genius?  

Professor  Malcolm  Campbell  

UWRT  1103  

March  12th,  2015  

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alanna  Morton  

Griffith, Mary Bess. “Alternate Reality Conceptualization: Venturing Along the Fine Line

Between Genius and Madness.” Issues in mental health nursing, 2011; 32(10): 624-31.

This academic peer reviewed journal article describes the relationships between the

concepts of genius, madness, and other reality conceptualization experienced by

schizophrenics. It specifically looks into one famous schizophrenic named Jonathan

Nash, who is a famous mathematician. He is infamous for overcoming his struggles, such

as his alterations of reality because of severe hallucinations and delusions as a result of

his schizophrenia. The article depicts the five most prevalent types of schizophrenia (dis-

organized, catatonic, paranoid, residual, and undifferentiated, paranoid schizophrenia),

which are said to be in about 40% of those with the disease. The author takes all of these

types and compares them to the result of the effected schizophrenics level of creativity

and intelligence as a result of the disease. It is found to be much higher in comparison

with those who do not have the disease. The author presents that the link between genius

and madness dates back more than 2,000 years and continues to the present. In fact, the

emphasis in psychological research began to change from genius to creativity and

giftedness. Albert R.S a famous American psychologist observed that genius also found a

change in emphasis particularly apparent after 1954, when the identification of giftedness

and gifted children became a Cold War essential. The concentration of this vitality was to

provide advanced and specialized educational opportunities for children gifted so that

they could be directed into scientific and technical fields. This source is a credible source

because it has been peer reviewed, was found by means of the reliable UNC Charlotte

Library website, and uses several references from reliable psychologists and the

American Psychiatric Nurses Association. I will use this source to provide information

Alanna  Morton  

and several real life examples, such as John Nash’s, on how madness and genius have

become interchangeable.

Ramey, Christopher H. “Not in their right mind”: the relation of psychopathology

to the quantity and quality of creative thought.” Frontiers in psychology, 2014; 5: 835.

This article examines the correlation between schizophrenia and creativity. It describes

the historical and cultural link between psychopathology and creativity. For Plato,

creative individuals are of little use, because his thoughts are said to portray that, “for as

much as they are sporadically close to the gods, their practice misrepresents the nature of

reality (e.g., in contrast to practiced philosophy and dialectic, which allows one to

glimpse beyond the world of appearances).” The article then begins to go further into the

idea that the creative individual is believed of being “possessed” or “inspired” in regards

to the general theory of knowledge and the good (Plato’s The republic). After looking

into the historical and cultural aspects of the correlation between schizophrenia and

genius the article begins to depict the neural mechanisms that support the relationship. It

provides recent neuroscience research that has highlighted the probable contribution of

both unstructured and organized processes to creative thought (Zabelina D. L., Robinson

M. D. (2010). Creativity as flexible cognitive control. Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 4

136–143 10.1037/a0017379 [Cross Ref]). The article then ends with an acknowledgment

of the opposing side that although there is evidence of serious methodological limitations,

correlational designs, and problematically unidirectional interpretations. However, it

proposes that the more output of the individual the more likeliness there is to be a higher

quality of creativity. This source is credible because it makes reference to infamous

Alanna  Morton  

philosophers and mathematicians from history all the while using neuroscience and

research to back up the proposition of the correlation between schizophrenia and genius.

In conclusion the authors’ research has given me a new insight as to why culturally,

historically, and neurologically there is a fine line between schizophrenia and genius.

Goethe University Frankfurt. "Schizophrenia: Impaired activity of the selective

dopamine neurons." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 19 Feb. 2015. Web. 7

Mar. 2015.

This is a magazine article on Medical News Today. The article proves the other side that

there is no correlation between schizophrenia and genius through research done by

professionals. This is posted on a reliable website that has been around and used as a

reliable reference on several medical diseases, sicknesses, along with their treatments and

symptoms since 2003. The article describes the general description of schizophrenia and

explains the neurological contributions to the symptoms as well as the effective and

ineffective treatments for the disease. It refers to the current edition of the “Proceedings

of the National Academy of Sciences,” (PNAS) a German-American team of researchers,

with the cooperation of the Goethe University, which states that a selective dopamine

midbrain population is essential for emotional and intellectual processing that shows the

reduction of electrics in vivo activity in a disease mouse model. Vivo activity is the

effects of various biological entities that are tested on whole, living organisms, animals,

humans, and plants in opposition of a partial or dead organism. In the research Professor

Eleanor Simpson and Professor Jochen Roeper, mathematician Professor Gaby Schneider

of Goethe University, and the physiologist Professor Birgit Liss of the University of Ulm

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define the neurophysiological impairments within the dopamine system. They proved,

with the use of single cell recordings, that in the brain of mice dopamine midbrain

neurons are responsible for emotional and cognitive processing. These cell recordings

exposed altered patterns and frequencies of electrical activity. They found that the closest

dopamine neurons, which are used for motor control, were not affected. It was then

concluded that the results showed that altered neuronal activity of selective dopamine

neurons is crucial for schizophrenia. So, they found in research that due to neurological

evidence that cognitive deficits, lack of motivation, and lack of emotion were

unresponsive to standard drug therapy. This, in turn makes it very difficult for treated and

socially and emotionally intact schizophrenic patients to have creative and intellectual

mind sets without experiencing several other struggles with severe symptoms of

schizophrenia. The article is very reliable because of the research by several professors of

notable universities. I will use this source to contrast the correlation between

schizophrenia and genius using evidence of neurological science.

Light, G. A., Geyer, M. A., Clementz, B. A., Cadenhead, K. S., Braff, D. L.

“Normal P50 Suppression in Schizophrenia Patients Treated With Atypical Antipsychotic

Medications.” The American Journal of Psychiatry.” Volume 157 Issue 5, May 2000, pp.

767-771

This webpage article thoroughly explains research and even an experiment done to

further describe the effects of atypical antipsychotic medications compared to

conventional antipsychotic medications on schizophrenic patients and to which one was

more affective. I found that this answered my question on whether certain medications

effectively treat schizophrenics more efficiently than another medication. This research

Alanna  Morton  

concluded patient groups did not differ on clinical or demographic measures. The results

support the researchers’ hypothesis that patients treated with atypical antipsychotic

medications have normal P50 measures of sensory gating. To clarify, P50 suppressions

are used to study cognitive and intellectual dysfunction. It is an operational measure of

sensory gating that can be calculated by averaging electroencephalographic responses to

many pairs of auditory clicks separated by 500 milliseconds. Usually, the second click is

smaller than the response to the first click. The researchers used this information to

determine which patients, based on their P50 suppressions, and should be treated with

either of the two antipsychotic drugs. It was determined that atypical antipsychotic

medications have a greater efficiency in treating cognitive symptoms. This source was

very helpful because it also answered the question of not only if a certain medication is

more efficient in treating schizophrenia than another and if the severity of the

schizophrenia in an individual effects the medication being used to treat it. More

importantly, the results found that the groups receiving atypical and typical antipsychotic

medications minimized the possibility that symptom state accounted for the results at all.

This source was very reliable and credible because it did a research that used evidence of

schizophrenic patients and evidence of science involving their P50 suppressions, which

revealed evidence of their response to medications. I will use this source because I rust

the information cited and the conclusions resulting from their research that was backed

up by science found within their experiment.