Creativity and evolution Camilo J. Cela-Conde * , Carolina Lo´ pez Arenillas, Marcos Nadal, Miquel A ` . Capo´, A ` ngela Corte´s Mascaro´, Gise`le Marty Laboratorio de Sistema´tica Humana, Edificio Ramon Llull, Campus Universitario, Carretera de Valldemossa km. 7,5, 07122 Palma, Spain Abstract. Could certain disorders, such as schizophrenia, be evolutionary correlates of Homo sapiens ’ creative mind? Both Timothy Crow and David Horrobin gave affirmative answers. Natural selection should have eliminated any genetic tendency to suffer from mental illnesses. Since this is not the case, some adaptive advantages must be associated with schizophrenia. The advantage might be related with language, religion, creativity or certain personality traits fixed at the latest stages of our evolutionary journey. Though no susceptibility genes for schizophrenia have been identified thus far, neuropsychological tests and neuroimaging techniques have revealed that in schizophrenic patients the most affected frontal brain area seems to be the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The DLPFC is one of the areas in which DTNBP1, a suspected bschizophrenia geneQ, is expressed. Our research team also found DLPFC activation in healthy participants while performing an aesthetic judgment task, thus relating a bcreativityQ task with that area. Our research is currently focused on brain activation patterns of schizophrenic patients while carrying out the same aesthetic judgment task, aiming to assess the potential role of DLPFC as a neurological link between mental illness and artistry. Resumen. SPueden ciertas patologı ´as, como la esquizofrenia, ser consecuencias evolutivas de la mente creativa de los Homo sapiens? Tanto Timothy Crow como David Horrobin han dado respuestas afirmativas. La seleccio´ n natural deberı ´a haber eliminado cualquier tendencia gene´tica a sufrir de enfermedades mentales. Puesto que e´ste no es el caso, deben existir ventajas adaptativas asociadas a la esquizofrenia. La ventaja podrı ´a estar relacionada con el lenguaje, la religio´ n, la creatividad o ciertos rasgos de la personalidad fijados en las u´ ltimas etapas de nuestro viaje evolutivo. Aunque hasta el momento no se han identificado genes de susceptibilidad para la esquizofrenia, las pruebas neuropsicolo´gicas y las te´cnicas de neuroimagen han revelado que el a´rea frontal del cerebro ma´s afectada en pacientes esquizofre´nicos parece ser la corteza prefrontal dorsolateral (DLPFC). La DLPFC es una de las a´reas en las cuales se expresa DTNBP1, sospechoso de ser un bgen de la 0531-5131/ D 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ics.2006.03.038 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 971 173029; fax: +34 971 173473. E-mail address: cjcela@atlas-iap.es (C.J. Cela-Conde). International Congress Series 1296 (2006) 95 – 105 www.ics-elsevier.com