That Creative Spark
In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks discussed a brilliant musician with Tourette’s syndrome, a disease of excessive involuntary motor movements and uncontrollable impulsiveness. Treated with haloperidol, a drug that blocks dopamine from acting on receptors, the man became calm and relatively normal, but his creative jazz drive left him. Dispensing with the drug on weekends, he returned to his creative and talented, if frenetic and tic-filled, self.
Drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin can increase creativity. But they are hardly the brain boosters of choice.
In a reverse example, neurologist Ruth Walker of the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York reported the case of a Parkinson’s patient who, treated with the dopamine-enhancing drug ropinirole, began producing large quantities of art. Walker wonders whether distortions in the patient’s frontal lobes combined with increased stimulation of dopamine receptors could account for the increase in artistic skill. Her findings jibe with other reports that increased dopamine can lower inhibition, increase novelty seeking, and allow some people to settle into sensations—all qualities that might enhance creative drive.
These examples point to a third, broad power of mind-enhancing drugs. Experts say that some compounds, most notably psychotropics—the controversial drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin—can increase creativity. Reports are widespread. Experimental pharmacologist Stefano Govoni of the University of Pavia in Italy, who headed a review of cognition enhancers published in Pharmacological Research, points to the painter Edvard Munch, who used hallucinogenic drugs to help him produce haunting, shimmering images, including his famous work The Scream. Vincent van Gogh, who suffered from epilepsy, reported seeing rings around lights and halo effects as a direct result of his treatment with digitalis.
Their intoxicating effects and the fact that they are illegal hardly make hallucinogens the brain boosters of choice. But do such anecdotes make the case for safe and legal elixirs that heighten sensation and enhance creative drive? As far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, apparently not. While memory and attention-boosting drugs are wending through the product pipeline, there are few signs of progress in the creative realm.
If anything, the opposite has occurred. Govoni says that when patients are treated for psychiatric disease, the creative impulses often associated with bipolar disorder, dementia, or even depression may fall by the wayside. “Many artists resist a cure in spite of the fact that they need treatment because they’re concerned it may alter their creativity,” he says. “Ritalin and other drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder have helped many children improve their focus and behavior. But classic ADHD traits, such as impulsivity and a disorganized life, have also been described in several thinkers, such as Albert Einstein, Salvador Dalí, Winston Churchill. What if Einstein or Churchill had taken ADHD drugs? Some researchers now wonder if would-be Einsteins and Edisons can achieve their full potential if their creativity and drive are dulled by ADHD drugs.”
Instead of drugs, the first brain boosters to channel creativity could be electromagnetic devices designed to enhance cognitive skills. One fascinating proposal comes from Allan Snyder, director of the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney in Australia. He theorizes that autistic savants derive their skills from an ability to access “privileged, less processed sensory information normally inhibited from conscious awareness.” For normal people, tapping that sensory well might lead to deeply buried creative riches. To test the idea, Snyder and colleagues exposed subjects to low-frequency magnetic pulses (the technology is called transcranial magnetic brain stimulation, or TMS) that suppressed part of their brain function. The researchers found that the subjects acquired savantlike skills, including the ability to render more detailed, naturalistic art.
While it may seem counterintuitive, Snyder says creativity can be enhanced by “temporarily turning off part of the brain.” Our concept-driven minds fit information into known models, he explains, but “if we can turn that off, we can at least momentarily see the pattern of dots as they really are, without interpretation, and allow for a new synthesis. TMS has the potential to create creativity by removing the filters of perception and allowing people to look upon the world anew.”
Transhumans
Using chemistry and technology to enhance our bodies is nothing new. Superconditioned athletes have, time and again, been tempted to dope, becoming faster and stronger with steroids and hormones that bulk up muscles—though with consequences ranging from loss of reputation to withered genitals and psychotic rage. Enhancing brains brings up similar concerns. Will cognitive tweaking have unexpected and even dangerous effects? Will it spawn a new drug culture? And is it fair for the wealthy to access a new generation of costly, off-label smart drugs while the rest of us do without?
Neuroethicist Wrye Sententia, acting director and cofounder of the nonprofit Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE), responds that fears of a new drug culture à la the “tune in, turn on, drop out” 1960s just do not apply to the modern better-living-through-chemistry model. “The truth is that most of the enhancement drugs are used to enhance your performance as a worker,” she says. “What’s more, drugs impact different people in different ways, and in 20 years scientists will hopefully be able to provide detailed drug compatibility analyses, so safety and effectiveness will increase.” Sententia also dismisses the fear of a have and have-not divide. “After all, if you look at society’s technological advances, it often starts with the upper class.”
Julio Licinio, a psychiatry professor and dean at the University of Miami School of Medicine, is not convinced the drugs will be so safe. He is concerned about a host of side effects from cognitive enhancement—not only the physical kind but the financial and societal, too. “Will you be at a competitive disadvantage if you don’t take them?” he asks. “I have horrible jet lag when I travel and sometimes can’t sleep. It is not chronic insomnia and not a disease, so I don’t take drugs.” But Licinio admits he has wondered how long he can hold out in the competitive world of academia when colleagues are taking Provigil, sleeping less, and gaining extra hours of work.
Perhaps the biggest proponents of enhancement are the technology boosters known as transhumanists. Their goal is the voluntary, ethical use of technology to create humans with biological capacities enhanced far beyond those of people today. Leading transhumanist Nick Bostrom, director of the University of Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, recognizes that the path may be neither fast nor direct. “The current medical system is built around preventing, diagnosing, curing, or alleviating disease,” he says. “This doesn’t leave enough resources for developing those mind-expanding, mind-tweaking drugs. In the short term, I’d expect things will happen as they have hitherto: by the stretching of diagnostic categories, by increasingly profligate off-label use, by people seeking their own medicines from online pharmacies. There might be exceptions carved out for particular professions—soldiers and eventually air traffic controllers and surgeons. In the longer run, some countries—perhaps Singapore, maybe China—will start to promote cognitive enhancers to their own populations, and other countries may follow suit for fear of falling behind.”
As I wrap up this story, I’m preparing for a conference halfway around the world. I am stressed about deadlines and long flights and jet lag. A friend stops by and suggests I smoke a joint so I can relax. I turn down the offer. Another friend, a doctor, drops off samples of Provigil, “just in case.” I also have a prescription for the antianxiety drug Klonopin in case I cannot cope with turbulence or a snoring seatmate (I’m flying in what I call Deep Vein Thrombosis Class).
At first I put the drugs aside, telling myself they aren’t for me. Then I reconsider. Everything we experience has an impact on our neurobiology. I will not be exactly the same after my journey whether I take Provigil or not. But if I take the drug, it might enhance the trip by helping me focus at the conference. And is it really a less natural way to augment my life than flying 38,000 feet above the planet at 500 miles per hour? I tuck the pills into my carry-on bag and go.
