Last summer, Dr. Kathryn Cullen (MnDRIVE researcher) co-created an innovative Creativity Camp at the U of M’s Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain for 12- to 17-year-olds with symptoms of depression. There they learned how to contra dance, work with clay, write letters to the Mississippi River, make self-portraits with personalized puzzle pieces, and hike through woods to gather materials to make a communal forest. The camp gave researchers a chance to study how young brains respond to creative activities and whether those activities can affect depression.
