In a large study published recently in Nature Neuroscience, Robert Power, a scientist affiliated with deCODE Genetics in Iceland, and his colleagues found that genetic factors which raise the risk of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are more prevalent in people who are in creative professions.44 Painters, musicians, writers, and dancers were, on average, 25 percent more likely to carry these gene variants than people who work in professions judged to be less creative: farmers, manual laborers, and salespeople.
