A report recently aired by KPIX in San Francisco highlights the spike in creativity that has been observed in a small percentage of people with FTD.

Bruce Miller, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and playwright Jake Broder, creator of the play UnRavelled, shared insights into the phenomenon with reporters.

For over two decades, FTD researchers such as Dr. Miller have studied the rare group of persons with FTD who display surging creativity. In a 1996 letter to the editor of the Lancet medical journal, Dr. Miller highlighted a man diagnosed with FTD named Jack who spontaneously began to paint and, over a decade, would go on to produce works that won awards at local art shows. As Dr. Miller shares in the report, some people who experience these surges, like Jack, had never painted or created anything visually before FTD.

“Jack was a banker with little interest in art who suddenly became an obsessed artist,” Dr. Miller said. “People who were not visual before [FTD] become very visually occupied.”

A prominent example of this visual occupation is scientist-turned-painter Dr. Anne Adams, whose FTD journey inspired UnRavelled. Dr. Adams’ works were intricate and nuanced, such as her most prominent painting, which translates composer Maurice Ravel’s famous experimental composition, Boléro, into a visual medium. Through the artwork, Broder notes, a “mystical connection” occurred between Dr. Adams and Ravel, who were united not just by their condition but by the art they brought to the world.

“What attracted me to this story is that it injects a note of hope into the symphony of dementia,” Broder said.

As for why FTD can cause some to experience creative surges, researchers are beginning to discover that the answer might lie in the atrophy patterns caused by the disease. According to recent studies, areas of the brain that typically suppress activity in the occipital cortex, the brain segment that serves as the visual processing center, can atrophy in ways that can “uncork” creativity typically repressed in a normal brain. These studies teach us about the brain and show the potential for all persons with FTD to express themselves in artistic activities like painting or music to feel connected with those that they love.

Interested in learning more about creativity in FTD? Click here to read about a recent study exploring the changes in the brain that can cause it.

UnRavelled was recently performed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on July 21.