Holmbom Larsen Axel, Londos Elisabet
Department of Clinical Sciences Malmö, Cognitive Disorder Research Unit, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.
J Alzheimers Dis Rep. 2024 Feb 6;8(1):173-187. doi: 10.3233/ADR-230134. eCollection 2024.
Creativity is a multifaceted, complex, activity, and as such is an overarching function of the brain rather than being confined to a specific structure or region.Alzheimer's disease effects several cognitive domains involved in the creative process of producing art.
We analyze the art of a well-known Swedish visual artist who suffered from Alzheimer's disease to determine if, and in what way, his art and creative process might have been influenced by the disease.
We compared his artistic process and artwork along with information from his spouse, medical r ecords, and cognitive tests as well as reviews of exhibitions written by art critics.
We show that not only did the artist continue to produce artwork well into a major decline in cognitive function, according to commonly used tests, but he could continue to do so for even longer with some assistance from his spouse. However, the artwork changed considerably as the disease progressed. We hypothesize that there is a substantial lack of representation of creative ability and function in cognitive tests.
Signs of the Alzheimer's disease can be seen in the early artwork if viewed by critics and those with more specialized knowledge into the artist's production. Further analysis of the complex interaction between complex neural activities, such as artistic creativity, and cognitive diseases is warranted and might provide insight in the field of neurological degenerative disease.
创造力是一项多方面、复杂的活动，因此是大脑的一项总体功能，而非局限于特定的结构或区域。阿尔茨海默病会影响艺术创作过程中涉及的多个认知领域。
我们分析一位患有阿尔茨海默病的瑞典知名视觉艺术家的作品，以确定其疾病是否以及如何影响他的艺术创作和创作过程。
我们将他的艺术创作过程和作品，与来自其配偶的信息、医疗记录、认知测试以及艺术评论家撰写的展览评论进行了比较。
我们发现，根据常用测试，这位艺术家在认知功能大幅衰退的情况下仍继续创作作品，而且在配偶的一些帮助下，他能够继续创作更长时间。然而，随着疾病的进展，他的作品发生了很大变化。我们推测认知测试中对创造力和功能的呈现严重不足。
如果由艺术评论家以及对该艺术家作品有更多专业了解的人来审视，在其早期作品中就能发现阿尔茨海默病的迹象。有必要对诸如艺术创造力等复杂神经活动与认知疾病之间的复杂相互作用进行进一步分析，这可能会为神经退行性疾病领域提供见解。
