Bipolar Mood Disorder, Creativity and Schizotypy: An Experimental Study

Aims: Our purpose was to make an experimental assessment of the elements of creativity and the features of schizotypy in patients with bipolar disorder, compared with healthy control subjects and to investigate the effect of an acute affective episode (depressed or manic) and the features of schizotypy on the measurements of creativity. Methods: Forty patients with bipolar disorder, and 48 age- and gender-matched control subjects were studied. For the assessment of creativity the Revised Art Scale and the 'inventiveness' part of the Berlin Intelligence Structure Test (BIS) were used. The Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences was applied for estimation of schizotypy. Results: The bipolar patients did not differ on the RAS scale from the control subjects but obtained significantly higher scores on the BIS-total as well as on the verbal part of the test. Their scores on the BIS scale during depression were significantly lower than in remission. The bipolar patients obtained significantly higher scores on all dimensions of schizotypy compared with the controls. Conclusions: These results confirm previous data showing higher scores on some creativity scales in bipolar patients compared with healthy subjects. They also corroborate a relationship between the features of schizotypy and creativity scores in bipolar patients. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel