A new Iceland study has found a connection between creative genius and mental illness. The study found that people who pursue careers in writing or visual and performing arts are more likely to carry genetic variations compared with people employed in occupations not defined as creative.

Creative people are inclined to develop psychosis, the kinds of serious disturbances of thinking and emotion, which is seen in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The study emerged largely from Iceland's DeCode Project and was sponsored by the biopharmaceutical company Amgen.

The researchers used medical information from 86,000 Icelanders to find genetic variants. It was found that Iceland people who associated with national societies of dancers, writers, musicians and visual artists were 17% more likely to have a genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder than those outside those professions.

Next, the researchers went on to check their findings with larger medical databases held in the Netherlands and Sweden. They found that people working in creative fields were 25% more likely to carry a strong genetic propensity to develop mental illness.

The researchers are not sure whether the link is due to shared genes of the family relatives or a shared upbringing environment. However, the findings suggested that it could be explained by similarities in the way brain works in creative people and in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Kari Stefansson, founder and CEO of deCODE, a genetics company in Reykjavik said, "To be creative you have to think differently. And when we are different, we have a tendency to be labeled stranger, crazy and even insane".