What Parkinson’s Reveals About the Artistic Spark

Author(s)
Matthew Pelowski, Blanca Thea Maria Spee, Alby Richard, Paul Krack, Bastiaan R. Bloem
Abstract

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world, cur- rently affecting around 0.1 percent of the population and rising to 3 percent of those over the age of 65. The list of well-known patients is long— from Muhammad Ali to Vincent Price, to, more recently, Michael J. Fox. Find- ing ways to ease the symptoms and improve the lives of people with Par- kinson’s disease is a broad, urgent area of research. Along the way, the study of Parkinson’s patients is also having a re- markable, and rather unexpected, con- sequence: It may lead to new insights into the basis of the “artistic spark”— the neurobiology underlying the way we create and respond to art.

Organisation(s)
Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Vienna Cognitive Science Hub
External organisation(s)
Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), Universitätsspital Bern (Inselspital), Radboud University
Journal
American Scientist: the Magazine of Sigma XI, the Scientific Research Society.
Volume
108
Pages
240-245
No. of pages
6
ISSN
0003-0996
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1511/2020.108.4.240
Publication date
07-2020
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
302052 Neurology, 604004 Fine arts, 501011 Cognitive psychology
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/what-parkinsons-reveals-about-the-artistic-spark(3e84c217-a104-498f-bc37-6602559f3cca).html