Illuminating Genius: Unlocking Creativity

Blending live performances, personal accounts of the creative process, and state-of-the-art brain imaging, this program illuminated questions about whether creativity is innate or learned, whether the innovative brain has distinct structural or chemical features, and whether we can enhance our ability — and that of our children — to be creative.

Choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones, actor Michael York, painter, sculptor and digital artist Matthew Ritchie, and 2007 MacArthur Fellow and "prodigy of invention" Saul Griffith joined neuroscientists V.S. Ramachandran, Nancy C. Andreasen, and David Eagleman to explore cutting edge research into the brain’s creative impulses. The event was moderated by John Hockenberry.