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| Santiago Ramon y Cajal's Glial cells of the cerebral cortex of a child, 1904 greyartgallery.nyu.edu/exhibition/ beautiful-brainthe-drawings-santiago-ramon-y-cajal/ |
Artists have always been fascinated with the mind and body. Neuroscience has only been studied for approximately a century. The work of Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who was the founder of neuroanatomy is a perfect example of the collaboration between art and science. He originally wanted to be an artist and said how"only artists are attracted to science"(Vesna). Cajal devoted a considerable amount of time to drawing nature scenes during his childhood. His significant finding was that you can understand connection neurons simply by looking at their shapes. "The tree like structure of neurons are not only beautiful, but they are also optimized to connect to neurons in a very efficient manner"(Vesna). Overall Santiago Ramon y Cajal is the perfect illustration of "an artist and scientist coming together with the left brain and right brain that really flourished in harmony and really contributed to the idea of consciousness in neuroscience"(Vesna).
Similar to Ramon y Cajal's work, but more contemporaneous was Susanne Anker's 2008 project titled The MRI Butterfly. It is composed of "15 identical brain scans arranged in a grid with a butterfly"(Vesna) that is placed in the center. It created an optical illusion, where even though each butterfly was the same in each print, they still appeared different from each other.
 All 15 scans from MRI Butterfly |
“Artwork.” Suzanne Anker, suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=16&wppa-cover=0&wppa-occur=1.
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Another organism being used in neuroscience are sea sponges. These very simple organisms, which help us to understand how our brain and the synapses work. Although sea sponges lack nervous systems, "these ancient animals offer clues to the development and origins of complex neurological systems. They possess signature proteins which react in a similar way to the proteins in synapses and possess all the building blocks for the development of nerves" (Vesna). As a result, these organisms are crucial for studying neurologic disorders.
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| Model sponge species studied world Leys, Sally P. “Elements of a 'Nervous System' in Sponges.” Journal of Experimental Biology, The Company of Biologists Ltd, 15 Feb. 2015, jeb.biologists.org/content/218/4/581. |
In conclusion, it is very apparent how connected neuroscience is to art. It is important to understand art and biology, in order to have a comprehensive knowledge of neuroscience. More and more scientific breakthroughs will happen by expanding our horizons in the future, just like the sea-sponge findings did for us.
Sources:
“Artwork.” Suzanne Anker, suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=16&wppa-cover=0&wppa-occur=1.
Vesna, Victoria. “Conscious / Memory (Part 1).” Lecture. 16 Nov 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DLVQIwOn7o8>
Leys, Sally P. “Elements of a 'Nervous System' in Sponges.” Journal of Experimental Biology, The Company of Biologists Ltd, 15 Feb. 2015, jeb.biologists.org/content/218/4/581.
“When Arts Meet Neuroscience...” PLOS Neuroscience Community, 17 Oct. 2016, blogs.plos.org/neuro/2016/10/16/when-arts-meet-neuroscience-by-naureen-ghani/.
Ink, Social. “The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal.” Grey Art Gallery, greyartgallery.nyu.edu/exhibition/beautiful-brainthe-drawings-santiago-ramon-y-cajal/.
Gabrielle,
ReplyDeleteI really liked how much deeper you went into researching the topic and felt like I really learned a lot more about the applications of neuroscience and art in your post. I especially enjoyed the brain MRI butterfly project as it's so interesting that we get to not only visualize how unique our brains are, especially as a "snapshot" of who we are as people but the juxtaposition of these images against the butterfly really highlight the art and uniqueness of it too. I really enjoyed your post this week!