Week 7 Neurosci + Art

The intersection of Neuroscience and Art helps me understand how Neuroscience developed through Art. Before taking this class, I thought Neuroscience is a branch of modern science since it requires to look inside human brain, where modern medical technologies are usually required. However, in the lecture Professor Vesna introduced that some artists and scientists and their works paved the way in exploring Neuroscience as it developed throughout the historic period. 

Neurons in human brain

To begin with, we can look at the beginning of primitive Neuroanatomy created by Franz Joseph Gall who is a German physician known for his phrenology chart. It was an attempt to look at the individual intellect and personality from an examination of the skull’s shape. He was convinced that the mental functions are localized in specific regions of the brain and that the human behavior is dependent upon these functions. This reminds me of my Linguistic 1 class. Language is processed in three different regions of human brain. The damages in these regions will cause different types of aphasia. For instance, Broca’s aphasia results from injury to speech and language brain areas such the left hemisphere inferior frontal gyrus, among others. In Mark Cohen lecture, he mentioned that through phrenology, criminals can be easily identified through different behavioral types. He simply measured the bumps on the head and stated that overused parts of the brain can result in larger bumps. However, it is not how the brain works since this is disproved by Pierre Paul Broca. Even though Gall’s ideas were popular for many years, advancement in Neuroscience provided the world with new insight on how the brain truly works.

A 19th century phrenology chart

Studies shows that humans share approximately 70% of their genes with sea sponges. They contribute to the building blocks of the development of nerves. On the other hand, a new of visualizing neurons call Brainbows was developed to distinguish individual neurons from the neighboring ones using fluorescent proteins. This has become a major contribution to the field of neuro-connection in the brain. These findings shows that more research in Neuroscience can be done by science compared to Gall’s methods in phrenology. Drugs were also used to exploring Neuroscience by scientists such as Freud, Hoffman, and Timothy Francis Leary but it is considered illegal today.

Brainbow hippocampus

Throughout history, Neuroscience continues to be more invasive but not always successful. The art, for example, the phrenology chart, helps us to visualize and understand the thing we don’t see every day.






References

"Broca's Aphasia." National Aphasia Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2017.

Cohen, Mark. "Neuroscience-Mark Cohen.mov" YouTube, uploaded by Victoria Vesna, 12 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDq8uTROeXU.

Dunn, Greg, Brian Edwards. "Brainbow Hippocampus." YouTube, uploaded by Will Drinker, 21 March 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZCZV5-v3S4.

"Future - Neuroscience." BBC. BBC, n.d. Web. 21 May 2017.

"Phrenology." Phrenology - New World Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2017.

Vesna, Victoria. " Neuroscience-pt1.mov." YouTube, uploaded by Uconlineprogram, 12 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI.


Vesna, Victoria. " Neuroscience pt3" YouTube, uploaded by Uconlineprogram, 16 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5EX75xoBJ0.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 24, 2017 at 2:00 AM

    Hi!
    Great blog post. I also took Linguistics 1 recently and definitely remember both Broca's and Wernicke's Aphasia. It's interesting how one "small" physical injury can almost change someone's entire personality and identity entirely. It'd be interesting to see a PET scan of the differences in brain activities in patients with these types of aphasia too. I also found the sea sponge fact to be quite profound. We always hear that we share 95+% of DNA with various organisms, but I did not know this applied to neurons as well. I would love to learn more!

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