Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk

Genes And The Economic Crisis
New book looks at the risk takers who caused the financial meltdown
New book Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking, and Risk examines genetic aspects of financial risk takers with a perfect example Robert Maxwell and others.  It also looks at other risk takers in sport e.g. Malcolm and Donald Campbell and others.
Other creative risk takers in the book include Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Thomas Cochrane, Walter Raleigh, Ulysses Grant, Richard Wagner, Kurt Cobain, James Dean, Clark Gable, Jesse James, Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Che Guevara, and St. Augustine.
These people’s brains are wired in a different fashion because of the genetic abnormalities that they have.  These are seen in mountain climbers, great explorers, and the first Homo sapiens out of Africa

Literature And Creativity
Literature – The Role of Genetics, Novelty, and Risk Taking
A new book looks at the genetic, brain wiring, and personality traits of great writers.
It throws new light on the creative process from a brain biological point of view.
The book focuses on Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain.

Music And Creativity
New book examines the personality of the great composers from a genetic, brain wiring, and personality point of view.
It throws new light on musical creativity with particular reference to Richard Wagner, John Lennon, and Kurt Cobain.

The Political Brain
The Brain, Politicians, Risk Taking, and Novelty Seeking
A new book gives a new understanding of politicians, their brain wiring, genetic profiles, and personality traits.  It used a number of examples including Ulysses Grant, Che Guevara, and Walter Raleigh.

The Brain And Artistic Creativity
A new book examines artistic creativity from a brain wiring perspective, genetic perspective, and unique personality traits.  It uses as examples Oscar Wilde, Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Robert Capa.

The Brain Of The Military Leader
A new book gives a unique insight into the brains of military leaders.  It focuses on their unique brain wiring, genetic profiles, and personality traits.  This is illustrated with references to Che Guevara, Thomas Cochrane, Walter Raleigh and Ulysses Grant.

The Criminal Brain
A new book looks at the unusual wiring of the brain of the criminal as well as their genetic profile and personality traits.  It uses Jesse James and Walter Raleigh to illustrate these unique insights.

The Brain Of The Explorer
A new book examines the unusual wiring of the brain of explorers, their genetic profiles and personality traits.  To illustrate these new insights the explorers Wilfred Thesiger and Walter Raleigh are examined.
Title:           Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk.

 

The Brain Of A Feminist
A new book examines the unique brain wiring of a socially revolutionary feminist, as well as examining genetic factors and unique personality factors.  It focuses on the “first Lady Di” Lady Di Beauclerk.
Title:           Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk.
Copy of Book available from Nova Science or Professor Michael Fitzgerald.


The Brain Of The Actor
A new book explores the abnormal wiring of the brain in great actors, as well as their unique genetic profiles, and personality traits.  It focuses particularly on Clark Gable and James Dean.
Title:           Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk.
Copy of Book available from Nova Science

 

Article:       Taking Risks.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking, and Risk.
Michael Fitzgerald

Financial risk taking is one of the major pre-occupations of the global community at present.  A new book on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty, Seeking and Risk throws new light on this topic from a genetic and a personality point of view.
As always it is a case of multiple genes of small affect, environment, and culture interacting.  There are genes associated with novelty seeking, sensation seeking, and risk taking.  It has been people with these characteristics who have been the drivers or leaders of the catastrophic risk taking that has brought about the global recession.  The controllers or regulators of these people e.g. accountants, conservative banking people, risk managers failed in their job to control these risk takers.  Great success in any enterprise means that you need the risk taking leaders or innovators backed up by a cadre of more “plodding” careful people.  These two groups are vital for each other.  In the past when we were lead by the “plodders” society became stagnant, with no innovation and no growth.
The situation was equally damaging for our society.  What we have to learn from the current financial catastrophe is that we have to create a healthy balance between risk takers and excessively cautious fearful controllers.  Companies and governments have to continuously audit this balance.  If risk is reduced too much then you have the economic recession from stasis.
Not alone is there a genetic component to risk taking through for example “novelty seeking genes” associated with Dopamine a neurochemical associated with reward, risk taking, and novelty seeking are activities which give a surge of the neurochemical Dopamine into the brain which is rewarding.  Risk taking people tend to be hyperactive hence the association with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
We would still be in the cave in Africa without the kind of people I have just described.  These people, the explorers and risk takers led Homo sapiens out of Africa and to the ends of the earth.
This new book describes the best example of reckless financial risk taking – the example being Robert Maxwell a psychopathic risk taker.  His personal financial life story is not unlike the current global financial crisis.  He was highly successful financially for a long time until he grossly over extended himself and the Sunday Mirror noted that he “stole 526 million . . . (and was) a gigantic fraudster” according to Tom Bower’s book on Maxwell.  It is interesting that in the current crisis pension funds were again destroyed.
The issue is whether Homo sapiens have the capacity to turn from its mistakes in the long term.  I don’t think we have the capacity to learn in the long term.  We have a massive capacity to forget and to deny.  There is none so blind as the one who does not want to see.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk is published by Nova Scientific:  New York.

 

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity,  Novelty Seeking and Risk         Michael Fitzgerald
A new book called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk focuses on the positive aspects of ADHD.  It appears that there is an overlap between the genes for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and creativity.
Unfortunately psychiatry has focussed excessively on the deficit model of psychological problems.  I never received a lecture on creativity during my medical or psychiatric career.  The exclusive focus on the deficit model only increases patient’s hopelessness, family’s hopelessness, and greatly increased the continuing problem of stigma in psychiatry.  Despite the late Anthony Clare’s huge work in this area stigma remains a huge problem in psychiatry.
Indeed professionals involved with mental illness are the most fearful of it, which has the effect of increasing stigma.
From an evolutionary perspective persons with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have contributed enormously to the development of the world, especially in the area of exploration and culture.  They have done this through novelty and sensation seeking characteristics of Homo sapiens.  These characteristics have genetic underpinnings associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  Homo sapiens would not have moved out of the cave or out of Africa without persons with these characteristics leading the ‘pack’.  Indeed one might hypothesise that the leaders of the Irish groups who migrated out of Ireland during the famine had more of these novelty seeking, sensation seeking characteristics.  An example of the genetic polymorphisms involved here would be the Dopamine Receptor Variant, the D4-7 allele.  Recent research suggests that the distribution pattern of the D4-7 allele among world populations is similar to that of ancient migrating paths of our species.  An allele is an alternative form that exists of any single gene.  In this book examples of explorers would be Wilfred Thesiger who worked in Africa and the war criminal in Ireland who showed psychopathic tendencies Sir Walter Raleigh.  From a literary perspective Mark Twain is discussed and of course Huckleberry Finn is a classic of a book on a person with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and is one of the great American literary classics.  Musical explorers discussed in the book include Robert Wagner who had major traits of creative psychopathy as did Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Peggy Guggenheim who had an affair with Samuel Beckett.  Another example would be Kurt Cobain the major pop singer and composer who became drug addicted and completed suicide which is not rare among people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  If Kurt Cobain who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in childhood had stayed on his Ritalin he may not have become a drug addicted.
Females can also be affected as was the first “Lady Di”.  Lady Di Beauclerk a societal transgressor, novelty seeker, and early feminist of the 18th century.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk has been published by Nova Scientific, New York.

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