Week 7: Neurosci + Art

 In our daily lives, we are already associating different neurotransmitters and chemicals with certain behaviors and actions in our body. I enjoyed learning about cocaine and LSD in lecture 3 (Vesna 2024). In CHEM 101: Catalysis in Modern Drug Discovery, I learned about how many drugs originate from plants and other natural products. It’s interesting to think about how drug use has affected artists and their work. Many drugs, if not all drugs, impact the way we see the world by impacting our cognitive function. Thus, they will of course have a role in our production and consumption of artwork. 

Image 1: Impulse

I became interested in how human cognition has changed over time and found a comprehensive theory known as “Environmental Complexity Thesis” (Godfrey-Smith 2002). ECT describes the environment as posing both challenges and opportunities for cognition to overcome and utilize respectively. It is interesting to view cognition as a “tool-kit” for survival and this aligns with many of the current models of learning in organisms. Something I wonder is what about brains and their structure create different cognitive capabilities.  



Image 2: Brain of the Artist

While it is obvious that certain parts of the brain play a role in our cognitive abilities, there is also difficulty in just saying that one part of the brain simply does a function without explaining it down to the finest detail (Deutsch 2009). Otherwise, we are simply attributing the function to “wizardry” and this obviously is not good science. Related to this is the study of neuroplasticity. When I first learned about this concept in high school, I was told that researchers are still trying to understand this work. Today, I see that there are ongoing clinical applications of neuroplasticity (Cramer 2011). The brain is able to adapt and has the ability to heal itself. I think introducing therapeutics to promote this self-healing would be the best direction for neurology. 



Image 3: Pathways

Another work that I found interesting was the video introducing fMRIs (deCharms 2008). I am currently working on measuring stroke volumes from DWI MRI at Cedars-Sinai and it was really cool to see the many applications of neuroimaging. Being able to see what’s going on in my brain as I act/think would be awesome and I hope I get the opportunity to do this one day.


Sources:

  1. Vesna, Victoria. Neurosci + Art: Lecture 3. 2024.

  2. Godfrey-Smith, Peter. "Environmental complexity and the evolution of cognition." The evolution of intelligence. 2002.

  3. deCharms, Christopher. “A look inside the brain in real time.” TED, 2008. https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_decharms_a_look_inside_the_brain_in_real_time?language=en.

  4. Cramer, Steven C., et al. "Harnessing neuroplasticity for clinical applications." Brain 134.6. 2011.

  5. Deutsch, David. “A new way to explain explanation.” TED, 2009. https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation?language=en


Images:

  1. Pepperell, Robert. "Connecting art and the brain: An artist's perspective on visual indeterminacy." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 5. 2011.

  2. Palmer, Angela. “Brain of the Artist.” 2012.

  3. Roettger, Diana; et al. “Pathways.” 2022

 


Comments

  1. Jay BhatnagarMay 16, 2024 at 10:22 PM

    Hi William, I liked learning about your personal insight into neuroscience and art. As someone who is majoring in Neuroscience, I also have a lot of previous experience, especially from my cluster course which investigates Neuroscience/Psychology within the arts. I also liked your mention of the correlation/bridge between brain structure and cognitive capabilities, something that I think future art should start to demonstrate. Also having experience with learning/researching neuroplasticity, I believe that using a combinational approach of utilizing wet-lab and clinical research approaches toward understanding memory is the way to go in the future, and can only occur by illustrating/labeling brain anatomy/physiology (via proteins, genes, etc.) that lead to beautiful brain artwork through fMRIs, microscopy images, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nima SadeghiMay 17, 2024 at 9:35 PM

    Hello William,

    The Ted Talks you linked were very interesting to go through. One thing that was very interesting to me in your post was exploring how hard it is to define brain functionality in specific parts. As a Linguistics major, we often explore this in Neurolinguistics where we look at brain functions through the idea of modularity. That is the idea that specific areas of the brain do one single thing really well, and output their work to other parts of the brain that also do something really well. We often try to analyze things through that lense and it I found it interesting how it can be applied to the way neuroscience applies to the processing of art as well.

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