Vienna CogSciHub: Dear Blanca, in your Keynote Lecture at the CoBeNe Academy, you spoke about your highly interdisciplinary research project Unlocking the Muse – Artistic Creativity and Parkinson’s Disease, funded by an FWF #ConnectingMinds grant. What does this project mean to you, and could you briefly introduce your work and the team involved?
Blanca Spee: "Unlocking the Muse" is an exciting and meaningful project that explores the intersection of art, creativity, and Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain, leading to motor symptoms such as stiffness, slowness, and tremors, as well as cognitive and affective symptoms, including difficulties in switching between convergent and divergent thinking and apathy. However, beyond these well-documented impairments, emerging anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests that some individuals with Parkinson’s experience a shift in their creative expression—sometimes developing a newfound or heightened artistic interest.
Our project aims to systematically investigate this phenomenon. We focus on both epidemiology and neuroscience, using these insights to develop healthcare interventions. To achieve this, we collaborate with individuals with Parkinson’s, artists, creative arts therapists, and researchers from diverse fields. Part of senior team and consortium is Matthew Pelowski (neuroaesthetics), Julia Crone (neurocognition), Bastiaan R. Bloem (medicine), and Jur Koksma from learning sciences as well as our creative director Marjoke Plijnaer from Art Unbound. This interdisciplinary approach enables us to gain a holistic understanding of how creativity is affected by Parkinson’s and, ultimately, how artistic engagement could serve as a meaningful and beneficial intervention.
Vienna CogSciHub: In your talk, you mentioned that Parkinson’s is diagnosed based on motor symptoms (stiffness, slowness in movement, rhythm issues, etc.) and that patients can receive medication to alleviate these symptoms. Case studies and your research suggest a link between a specific type of medication—dopamine agonists—and changes in creativity. Do you think this interesting "side effect" can help us better understand the general relationship between action (motor activity) and cognition (creativity)?
Blanca Spee: Yes, absolutely. The relationship between motor function and cognition is a fundamental question in neuroscience, and Parkinson’s disease provides a unique window into this connection. Dopamine agonists, which stimulate dopamine receptors in the brain, are known to help with motor symptoms but can also lead to behavioral changes—including impulsivity and, apparently, increased creativity. This suggests that dopamine not only plays a key role in movement but also in cognitive flexibility and creative thought.
Our research explores whether these creativity shifts are purely medication-induced or whether Parkinson’s itself alters cognitive and artistic processes in a more intrinsic way. Creativity is a complex phenomenon that involves generating novel ideas, making unexpected connections, and engaging in exploratory behavior—all of which are influenced by dopamine-regulated neural pathways. By studying creativity in Parkinson’s, we hope to gain insights into how movement, cognition, and the brain’s reward system are interwoven, which could have broader implications for understanding creativity and cognitive flexibility in general.
Vienna CogSciHub: In your research, you don’t take the traditional third-person perspective often associated with scientific studies. Instead, you are fully engaged with the participants, working alongside people with Parkinson’s, medical doctors, researchers, artists, and art therapists. Everyone actively contributes to the project, rather than merely being observed. How does your research benefit from this active engagement? What challenges do you face, and what makes it all worthwhile?
Blanca Spee: We deliberately use participatory action research and design-based research methods, which emphasize collaboration with those directly affected by the condition. This approach ensures that the interventions we develop are meaningful and relevant to people with Parkinson’s. One of the biggest challenges in healthcare innovation is that many solutions are created without sufficient input from the people they are meant to serve, leading to interventions that are ineffective or underutilized. Our research aims to address this by directly involving individuals with Parkinson’s in shaping the study from the beginning.
Being embedded in the process as a researcher also means learning how to listen, engage, and adapt based on real-world experiences. This fosters a deeper understanding of the mechanisms at play—both on a neurological level and in terms of lived experience. However, this approach also comes with challenges. It is deeply personal and requires balancing immersion with maintaining scientific rigor. Knowing when to step back and systematically test an intervention is crucial. Despite these complexities, I wouldn’t want to do research any other way anymore—this method provides an incredibly rich perspective that traditional approaches often miss.
Vienna CogSciHub: You mentioned that Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease. Given your focus on creativity, would it be possible to discuss Parkinson’s as a symptom of a society that has lost its creativity, or would that be too sensationalist?
Blanca Spee: While I can’t scientifically prove a direct connection, I do think our society has, in many ways, deprioritized creativity and personal expression. We live in a time of information overload, constant digital stimulation, and external pressures that leave little room for reflection, imagination, and creative play. Just as physical exercise is essential for maintaining bodily health, creative engagement is vital for cognitive and emotional well-being.
From a broader perspective, Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative condition with environmental and genetic risk factors. But if we consider how stress, lack of mental stimulation, and disconnection from creativity affect overall brain health, it is worth asking whether societal factors contribute to cognitive decline over time. While we can’t claim that a decline in creativity causes Parkinson’s, we do know that engaging in artistic activities and creative expression can support brain activity in a natural way and overall well-being.
Vienna CogSciHub: Could you elaborate on the relationship between Parkinson’s disease and pesticide exposure? If Parkinson’s disease is linked to pesticides, which are primarily absorbed through the lungs or intestines, could gastrointestinal issues serve as early indicators of developing Parkinson’s disease?
Blanca Spee: There is growing evidence that pesticide exposure is a significant environmental risk factor for Parkinson’s disease. Pesticides have been found to contribute to neuronal degeneration, particularly in dopamine-producing cells in the basal ganglia system.
Interestingly, recent research suggests that Parkinson’s might not originate solely in the brain but could have peripheral origins—specifically in the gut. Many people with Parkinson’s experience gastrointestinal issues, sometimes years before they develop motor symptoms. The gut-brain connection is an emerging area of research, with some scientists hypothesizing that toxic substances, such as pesticides, may trigger inflammatory responses in the intestines that eventually affect the nervous system. If this is the case, gastrointestinal symptoms like constipation could serve as an early warning sign for Parkinson’s, next to issues with sleep, and potentially open new avenues for early diagnosis and intervention.
Vienna CogSciHub: You also mentioned that sleep behavior could be a major indicator for the development of PD and referenced a patient who worked through 30 days and nights. Is Parkinson’s a result of a society that has lost its natural day-night cycles?
Blanca Spee: While we cannot say that disrupted sleep causes Parkinson’s, there is a well-documented correlation between sleep disturbances and neurodegeneration. Sleep is essential for brain health—it plays a crucial role in detoxification, synaptic plasticity, and memory consolidation. Many individuals with Parkinson’s experience REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) long before they develop motor symptoms, suggesting that sleep dysfunction could be an early indicator of neurodegeneration.
More broadly, modern society does often disrupt natural circadian rhythms. Increased screen time, artificial lighting, irregular work schedules, and chronic stress can all negatively impact sleep quality. If poor sleep is a contributing factor to neurodegeneration, then addressing societal sleep habits could be an important part of public health strategies aimed at reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
Vienna CogSciHub: Thank you for your insights and all the best for your current and upcoming research!
Mag. Dr. Blanca Thea Maria Spee, BSc MSc co-leads the "Unlocking the Muse – Artistic Creativity and Parkinson’s Disease" FWF project. Blanca completed her Doctorate at the University of Vienna in 2022 and works in close collaboration with the Parkinson Center Nijmegen at Radboud University, Nijmegen (Netherlands).
Further Reading:
- Unlocking the Muse in the Rudolphina Research Magazine: https://rudolphina.univie.ac.at/en/unlocking-the-muse-art-in-parkinsons-disease
- Unlocking the Muse at the FWF Forschungsradar: https://www.fwf.ac.at/forschungsradar/10.55776/CMW30
- Art Unbound: https://artunbound.nl/
