Factors underlying creativity show distinct genetic architecture and genetic correlations with psychiatric disorders

Abstract

While creativity is widely recognized as multifaceted, genome-wide association studies have largely focused on individual measures. Here, we used genomic structural equation modeling of six creativity-related GWASs and identified two latent genetic factors: a general factor and an artistic factor, with 22 and 13 genome-wide significant loci, respectively, nine of which are novel. The general factor was almost perfectly genetically correlated with educational attainment (rg = 0.96), suggesting that it primarily captured genetic influences shared with cognitive and educational processes rather than creativity-specific variation. In contrast, the artistic factor showed only a weak genetic correlation with educational attainment (rg = 0.11) and consistent positive genetic correlations with psychiatric disorders, whereas associations for the general factor were largely null or negative. Biological annotation analyses further identified distinct enrichment patterns unique to the artistic factor, providing initial evidence that different dimensions of creativity may be characterized by partially distinct neurobiological pathways.