A recent study in the European Journal of Neurology (Professional occupation and the risk of Parkinson’s disease) makes some highly provocative speculations about the relationship between what occupation you choose to work in and whether you have, or will have, Parkinson’s disease. In a nutshell, the study’s authors suggest that Parkies, including future Parkies, are more likely to choose “conventional” jobs over creative, artistic ones.
Here’s the opening paragraph from the abstract:
“Creativity in Parkinson’s disease is strongly related to dopaminergic activity [‘dopaminergic = containing, involving, or transmitting dopamine.’ Thanks, Wiktionary!] and medication. We hypothesized that patients with PD, including those who are in the pre-diagnostic phase of PD, are prone to choose highly structured ‘conventional’ professional occupations and avoid highly creative ‘artistic’ occupations.”
And here’s the opening paragraph of the main text:
“In patients with Parkinson’s disease, low levels of dopamine and cortical dopamine receptor availability are associated with a lack of novelty seeking. Furthermore, patients with PD may show changes in personality following initiation of dopaminergic treatment, progressively displaying traits such as novelty seeking. Given the remarkable link between dopaminergic state and creative behavior, patients with PD may be most comfortable in more structured jobs that do not require optimal dopamine levels, possibly leading to an over-representation in highly structured ‘conventional’ occupations. In turn, patients with PD may be under-represented in ‘artistic’ occupations, which are strongly correlated with high-creativity traits such as ‘openness to new experience.’”
And now let’s jump right to the conclusion:
“The risk of PD varies substantially by choice of professional occupation.”
The researchers studied data supplied by 12,147 individuals aged 45 years or higher in Rotterdam. The volunteers received baseline as well as follow-up examinations for PD every four years, for an average of 11 years. (Note: Not every volunteer developed PD.) The data were also compared to a second study which contrasted patients with PD before they were diagnosed vs. asymptomatic controls.
The researchers divided occupations into six already established categories, called the RIASEC model, which groups similar jobs and links them to personality characteristics. The six categories are:
• Realistic (R)
• Investigative (I)
• Artistic (A)
• Social (S)
• Enterprising (E)
• Conventional (C)
For this paper, the researchers only looked at two contrasting categories, Artistic and Conventional. Here’s a fuller explanation of each, which I’m quoting from the paper’s appendix:
Artistic:
• Musician, stage director, dancer, decorator, actor, writer
• Have artistic skills, enjoy creating original work, have good imagination
• Like working with creative ideas and self-expression more than routines and rules
• Disorderly, expressive, idealistic, impractical, independent, open, and originalConventional:
• Bookkeeper, financial analyst, banker, tax expert, secretary
• Have clerical and math abilities
• Like to work indoors and to organize things
• Like to follow orderly routines and meet clear standards, avoiding work that does not have clear directions
• Careful, efficient, orderly, persistent, practical, and thrifty
What were the results?
As you might imagine, people working in conventional occupations outnumbered those who were artistic: 36% (n = 4356) of the volunteers worked at conventional jobs, whereas only 1% (n = 137) were involved in artistic work. Interestingly, 65% of the conventional workers were female vs. only 27% of the artistic group. And to quote from the article, “The most common artistic occupation was musician, whereas the most common conventional occupation was shop employee.”
What are the main take-aways from the results? Let’s quote from the article:
These studies specifically show that individuals with highly creative artistic occupations have a reduced risk of PD, whereas individuals with highly structured conventional occupations may have an increased risk of PD….
As far as we know, farming is the only occupational group that has consistently been demonstrated to be associated with the risk of PD.
Patients with PD who are being treated with dopaminergic medication can newly develop artistic expressions that they had not previously shown.
What does this mean to me?
First off, I think everyone should realize that the career choice you make doesn’t cause PD, but it may indicate something about your brain’s composition that might put you at higher risk of PD than people following a different career path.
Second, I have PD yet I’m also addicted to writing and playing music and have been so all my adult life. If I had more free time I would publish more blog posts, finish my novel (I’m working on the closing chapters now), and practice my musical instrument (the Korean kayagum) at least an hour a day. This makes me somewhat of an outlier according to this study.
But more importantly, what does this research suggest about the relationship between the brain (that spongy, physical blob lodged within your skull) and the mind (which, I suppose, could be considered as the aware consciousness, or the “I” who says, “I think that…” or “I notice that…”)?
I always thought that it was the mind that oversees and teaches the brain, starting in utero and continuing to the last gasp before you die. What makes you decide whether to become a musician or a shop keeper depends more on what’s available to you in the outside environment and how you’re taught. In my charter school in New York City, virtually every child in Kindergarten loves to draw, and because of our school’s specialized pedagogy, almost every child loves to write and play with words. And it seems they all like to build things with blocks, conduct experiments in science class, and sing songs. The future seems to hold many possibilities for them, and they have the freedom to choose anything and everything if they put their mind to it.
But now this study suggests that your brain’s chemistry (specifically, in this case, whether your brain produces enough dopamine) influences what career you decide to follow as an adult. Where’s the free will in that?
Put another way: Who’s in charge here – the physical brain or the conscious mind?
This is a major question for me – what’s the relationship between the mind and the brain? – and now I’m on a quest to research the topic some more.
