Abstract
Objectives
Some patients with left temporal degeneration develop visual artistic abilities. These
new artistic abilities may be due to disinhibition of the visuo-spatially dominant
right hemisphere. Many famous artists have had epilepsy and it is possible that some
may have had left temporal seizures (LTS) and this left temporal dysfunction disinhibited
their right hemisphere. Alternatively, unilateral epilepsy may alter intrahemispheric
connectivity and right anterior temporal lobe seizures (RTS) may have increased these
artists' right hemisphere mediated visual artistic creativity.
Methods
To test the disinhibition versus enhanced connectivity hypotheses we studied 9 participants
with RTS and 9 with left anterior temporal seizures (LTS) who underwent unilateral
lobectomy for the treatment of medically refractory epilepsy. Creativity was tested
using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT).
Results and conclusions
There were no between group differences in either the verbal or figural scores of
the TTCT, suggesting that unilateral anterior temporal ablation did not enhance visual
artistic ability; however, for the RTS participants' figural creativity scores were
significantly higher than verbal scores. Whereas these results fail to support the
left temporal lobe disinhibition postulate of enhanced figural creativity, the finding
that the patients with RTS had better figural than verbal creativity suggests that
their recurrent right hemispheric seizures lead to changes in their right hemispheric
networks that facilitated visual creativity. To obtain converging evidence, studies
on RTS participants who have not undergone lobectomy will need to be performed.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 31, 2012
Accepted:
September 26,
2012
Received in revised form:
September 21,
2012
Received:
July 23,
2012
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc.
