CEREBRART - REFLECTION

This CEREBRART work interprets allegorically the Reflection phase. Socrates said that in order to lead a balanced life one must, "know thyself." Above all, reflect your life for "the unexamined life is not worth living". Not an easy task. The brain mechanisms mediating the ways in which the self can be known are extremely complex and include medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Like people who risk blindness by looking directly at the sun rather than at its reflected image in the water, Socrates appended, he had risked blinding his soul by trying to cognize the essence directly.

Nevertheless, Socrates reflected. And it was for this reason that the oracle proclaimed him to be the wisest of men.

CEREBRART - MOTIVATION

Integration, Information, Motivation, Intention, Volition, Action and Reflection are closely related topics of  brain functioning. Our extended integrated action model is based on a psychological theory on human behavior and integrates concepts of  cognitive psychology, neurosciences and motivational theories. The model tries to explain, why a person shows or does not show certain actions in a situation where a specific action would have to be expected.  

This CEREBRART work interprets allegorically the Motivation phase, where a motive is formed that drives the person to think deeply about an action related to some challenge. Focusing on our model allows the brain to consider very different phenomena related to Integration, Information, Motivation, Intention, Volition, Action and Reflection to be treated as components of a unified cyclic process that unfolds when an organism faces a challenge or opportunity and could use that challenge to get a new, a higher level of healthy integration with the Biosphere.

CEREBRART - Information Circuits

CEREBRART - Information Circuits of the dentate gyrus. Dentate gyrus contains densely packed granule cells.

 

Granule cells extend their dendrites to receive sensory information from the perforant path axons.

Per CEREBRART ad Astrocytic Processes ...

This CEREBRART work is inspired by a brilliant recent publication and its authors very generously gave me permission for such an artistic interpretation of the data (M. Arizono, H. Bannai, K. Nakamura, F. Niwa, M. Enomoto, T. Matsuura, A. Miyamoto, M. W. Sherwood, T. Nakamura, K. Mikoshiba, Receptor-Selective Diffusion Barrier Enhances Sensitivity of Astrocytic Processes to Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Stimulation. Sci. Signal. 5, ra27 (2012)).

It matches exceptionally well with CEREBRART philosophy of Brain-Time-Chaos. The museum of Emil Nolde in Seebüll and also his coast areas visions became an important source of inspiration for this painting, 

CEREBRART and Street Art?

Are there any links between CEREBRART and Street Art?

I am happy in that my life in both amateur art lover and professional scientist areas overlaps somehow when I enjoy looking at my favourite objects for amateur study - street arts,  the ones I preferentially seek out while strolling Europe’s great cities, - because not only the compositions are often interesting to look at and the colours usually pleasing to my eyes, but also even when the street artist's brain focuses on something entirely different, say abstract painting or caricature, there could be unexpectedly found some small hidden features of CEREBRART there.

Brain Painting is not very far from CEREBRART...

Brain Painting is not very far from CEREBRART...

In Brain Painting the cerebrally painted picture draws itself via the power of thoughts and, simultaneously, on the walls of Rostock‘s Hall of Art, the Ars Electronica Centre, and live into the web. Various renowned artists perform Brain Painting in their own atelier, and via live streaming the emerging paintings show up in the exhibition:

CEREBRART - VOLITION

This CEREBRART work represents allegory of human volition.

Lightning is Zeus’s energizing power. But man’s motor power begins with cerebral volition. Many premotor and motor areas of the cerebral frontal lobe are closely associated with volition.  Giant pyramidal cells, also known as Betz cells, are the source of the axons that project to distant parts of the nervous system and send their impulses via motor cells to the muscles. Pyramidal cells have also an apical dendrite that extends towards the surface of the cerebral cortex. Epictetus declared that man’s volition is thoroughly in his power and no one, ‘not even Zeus himself has power to overcome it’.

CEREBRART - ACTION

CEREBRART action. Cortical motor homunculus in Brodmann area 4 (primary motor cortex of the human brain located in the posterior portion of the frontal lobe - precentral gyrus) has very large hands with an especially large thumb.

Motor homunculus paints left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC - Brodmann area 46) necessary for manipulating information in working memory. The environmental support is very important.

CEREBRART - INTENTIONS

This piece of the CEREBRART presented recently the 8th FENS Forum of Neuroscience is about INTENTIONS. There are many ways of interpreting this CEREBRART work.

You may think of excitatory postsynaptic potentials caused by glutamatergic inputs at the dendrites of the spiny neurons which cause an action potential when the depolarization wave is strong enough upon entering the cell soma. This is a scientific side of CEREBRART. Or you may remember famous philosopher Gilbert Ryle which had Rodin’s most famous sculpture, The Thinker, bent over in concentrated thought, in mind when he asked the question, “What is The Thinker doing?” Or you may think of the judgment of Paris. Confronted with three beauties, Paris’s brain was required to think - to create intentions and then evaluate them and reach a decision as to which should receive the GOLDEN APPLE. Eventually, there was a moment for his brain (tI) when the period of generating intentions (I) began, and it lasted until he finally abandoned two of them (tV) - in other words, his brain created only one volition (V) - to act and move the GOLDEN APPLE toward Aphrodite, which according to myth was the unintentional cause of the Trojan War. Of course, there are many other ways of interpreting this CEREBRART work. I hope you enjoy it!

Does this picture possess ... CEREBRART?

This picture exhibits my individual point of view on the unique evolution of the human brain  (especially, hominin brain expansion and the vulnerability of human brain development)  and is made with the clear intention to be a work of CEREBRART.

An interesting question is: "Does this picture possess positive aesthetic and scientific properties needed to be qualified as CEREBRART?"

BRAIN and ART

Our response to art stems from an irrepressible urge to recreate in our own brains the creative process—cognitive, emotional, and empathic—through which the artist produced the work. This creative urge of the artist and of the beholder presumably explains why essentially every group of human beings in every age and in every place throughout the world has created images, despite the fact that art is not a physical necessity for survival. Art is an inherently pleasurable and instructive attempt by the artist and the beholder to communicate and share with each other the creative process that characterizes every human brain—a process that leads to an Aha! moment, the sudden recognition that we have seen into another person’s mind, and that allows us to see the truth underlying both the beauty and the ugliness depicted by the artist.

From the Book, THE AGE OF INSIGHT by Eric R. Kandel. Copyright © 2012 by Eric R. Kandel.

Psilocybin Art

Perhaps not quite CEREBRART but really interesting from a CEREBRART point of view. A contemporary artist Brian Lewis Saunders has done at least one self-portrait every day for almost 16 years now, and will continue to do this until he dies. Every day,  Brian Lewis Saunders would take a different neuroactive drug and then draw his self-portrait while under the influence.

Just one example - psilocybin. The ability of psilocybin to cause perceptual distortions is linked to its influence on the activity of the prefrontal cortex - the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas. This self-portrait clearly demonstrates some significant changes in the frontal area.

For more, visit his website.