NeuroScience And Art
Few mediums can combine art and science like the brainbow
can. The vibrant colors of the neurons on a dark background in a brainbow image
make it very visually appealing, like a pointillism picture. However, I wanted
to learn more about the science behind a brainbow image. According to the
Harvard Gazette, the colors in the neuron image are created using “a mix of
genetic tricks and special proteins,” which reminded me of last week’s unit on Biotech.
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| Brainbow Image of an Organism |
Before this lecture, I had heard of Sigmund Freud and Carl
Jung, although I did not know that they were contemporaries, and I did not know
that their ideas were so philosophically different. I think that Jung’s
research on Archetypes is interesting because it uses historical images from
cultures around the world to show that all people share personality traits and
ideas that are inherently human.
Although Professor Vesna did not go into this in lecture, I
think it is interesting to look at pieces of art that people create when they
are on LSD. As described in this Buzzfeed article, an artist drew self
portraits as she progressed through her LSD trip. One can see how much more
vibrant and impressionistic her self-portraits become as LSD frees her mind
from normal constraints.
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| Self-Portrait Before Taking LSD |
Albert Hoffman’s experiment on himself with LSD was
courageous and groundbreaking. But since then, scientific research on LSD has
stagnated. I was surprised to find out that there has not been much research
into the imaging of a brain on LSD. Recently however, a group led by Professor
David Nutt is looking to change this with a crowd-funded research study. The
tests have already been performed, and now they are analyzing their data. I
hope that in the future, more research is done in this exciting field!
Web. 16 May 2015. <http://pixshark.com/brainbow-synapse.htm>.
