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The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations).

TITLE: "Depression and Creativity" Symposium SPEAKER: Kay Redfield Jamison, Terence Ketter, Peter Whybrow EVENT DATE: 02/03/2009 RUNNING TIME: 124 minutes DESCRIPTION: Kay Redfield Jamison, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, convened a discussion of the effects of depression on creativity. Joining Jamison were two distinguished colleagues from the fields of neurology and neuropsychiatry, Dr. Terence Ketter and Dr. Peter Whybrow. The Music and the Brain series is co-sponsored by the Library's Music Division and Science, Technology and Business Division, in cooperation with the Dana Foundation. The "Depression and Creativity" symposium marks the bicentennial of the birth of German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), who died after a severe depression following the death of his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, also a gifted composer. Speaker Biography: One of the nation's most influential writers on creativity and the mind, Kay Redfield Jamison is a noted authority on bipolar disorder. She is the co-author of the standard medical text on manic-depressive illness and author of "Touched with Fire," "An Unquiet Mind," "Night Falls Fast" and "Exuberance: The Vital Emotion." Speaker Biography: Dr. Terence Ketter is known for extensive clinical work with exceptionally creative individuals and a strong interest in the relationship of creativity and madness. He is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and chief of the Bipolar Disorders Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine. Speaker Biography: Dr. Peter Whybrow, an authority on depression and manic-depressive disease, is director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also the Judson Braun Distinguished Professor and executive chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at th

A Northwestern research group has found that people that solve anagram puzzles by sudden insight rather than by conscious search or analytic strategies have an EEG resting state that prefers the right over the left hemisphere.

1. Human relationships: Men have a more difficult time understanding emotions that are not explicitly verbalized 2. Left brain vs. both hemispheres: men approach problem-solving from a task-oriented perspective while women more creatively and are more aware of feelings 3.Mathematical abilities: men perform higher 4. Reaction to stress: Men tend to have a "fight or flight" response to stress, women approach it with a tend and befriend strategy. 5. Language. 2 sections of the brain responsible for language - larger in women 6. Emotions. Women are more in touch with their feelings and better able to express them 7. Brain size. Typically, men's brains are 11-12% bigger 8. Pain: women require more morphine to reach the same level of pain reduction. 9. Spatial ability. Men have stronger spatial abilities. 10. Susceptibility to disorders: Men are more apt to have dyslexia or other lang problems. women are more susceptible to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.

"Researchers have long known that people cling to their personal biases more tightly when feeling threatened. After thinking about their own inevitable death, they become more patriotic, more religious and less tolerant of outsiders, studies find. When insulted, they profess more loyalty to friends - and when told they've done poorly on a trivia test, they even identify more strongly with their school's winning teams. #implicit learning: k. gained without awareness #rain-imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in the real world #disorientation begets creative thinking. "