meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
More or Less

WS MoreOrLess: Creativity and Mental Illness

More or Less

BBC

News Commentary, Science, Mathematics, News

4.63.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2015

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are creative people more likely to suffer mental illness, and has Cuba wiped out child hunger? Wesley Stephenson investigates.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the short edition of Morales, first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

0:06.0

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

0:09.0

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use

0:12.0

go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts.

0:18.0

Hello and welcome to Morales on the BBC World Service with me, Wesley Stevenson.

0:24.0

Later in the programme we're heading off to Cuba to answer a listener's question

0:27.0

about whether the country has managed to eradicate child malnutrition.

0:39.0

But first, is there a link between mental illness and creativity?

0:57.0

Take Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys as an example, he's thought to encapsulate this theory.

1:08.0

A musician whose creativity almost seemed to go hand in hand with his descent into mental illness

1:14.0

as he worked on his masterpiece album Pet Sounds.

1:17.0

Sometimes I feel very sad.

1:23.0

It's an interesting theory, but can you prove it scientifically?

1:27.0

A recent study by researchers in Iceland sought to establish whether it was possible to predict

1:32.0

how creative someone was by studying individuals DNA.

1:36.0

Dr. Cari Stevenson from the company DeCode worked on the paper.

1:41.0

He took all of the variants in the human genome that I've been shown to associate

1:47.0

with schizophrenia.

1:48.0

We put together a social polygenic risk score.

1:52.0

So the higher you risk score, the more likely you are to develop in schizophrenia.

1:57.0

And then we asked the question, is this polygenic risk or higher in the members of the creative professions?

2:03.0

And we looked at members of the association of Icelandic writers and painters and composers, etc.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.