CEREBRART - My February Tribute to Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak (born on 10 February 1890 and died of lung cancer on 30 May 1960 filled with pain and suffering) is widely regarded as the greatest of the Russian philosophical lyric poets. During my school years I was deeply influenced and inspired by his poetic world laden with profound and complex imagery and I have even attempted to create a portrait of Boris Pasternak on the glass plate.

This CEREBRART work attempts to illustrate some of his philosophical thoughts. An approximate translation of just one great excerpt would sound like:

…But older age is Rome, demanding
From actors not a gaudy blend
Of props and reading, but in earnest
A tragedy, with tragic end.

A slave is sent to the arena
When feeling has produced a line.
Then breathing soil and fate take over
And art has done and must resign.

CEREBRART - Nucleus Accumbens

The nucleus accumbens (there are two symmetrical nuclei accumbentes in the human brain) which has been described as an interface between limbic and motor brain systems is the "pleasure center" of the brain selectively activated during the perception of pleasant, emotionally arousing pictures (like this one) and during mental imagery of nice people, laughter and pleasant, emotional scenes. Through still poorly understood mechanisms dopaminergic input from the ventral tegmental area regulates the activity of neurons within the nucleus accumbens. The output neurons of the nucleus accumbens send axon projections to the ventral pallidum which, in turn, projects to the thalamus, which projects to the brain cortex. This CEREBRART work illustrates the neural basis of pleasure and perhaps the visitors of my CEREBRART blog will have the additional pleasure of enjoying this picture and activating their own nuclei accumbentes.

CEREBRART - HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE

Huntington’s disease or Huntington’s chorea, from the Greek word for “dance” is the most common genetic cause of chaotic involuntary movements.  Neuropathologically, Huntington’s disease is characterized by atrophy of the heads of the caudate nuclei and enlargement of the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles. This CEREBRART work is presented without providing any further detailed explanation of the damaged cellular, tissue and organ structures shown here, and thus becomes a means for the spectator’s imaginations and neurobiology knowledge applications.

CEREBRART -.VISUAL CHAOS

The famous Lorenz Attractor - a chaotic attractor representing the long-term behavior of a system in visual form, whose body plan resembles a butterfly or a striped face mask, has become an emblem of chaos theory. The excessive and chaotic brain responses to chaotic visual stimuli and a particular brain visual systems sensitivity to a pattern of regularly spaced parallel stripes are well-known phenomena. This CEREBRART work visualizes these ideas artistically.

CEREBRART - In Memoriam: David Warren Brubeck

We live in an artificial overly-geometrically-correct tetragonal culture. Tetragonal shapes having four angles or sides are all around us including my CEREBRART artworks. But our brain is a pentagonal universe - from the anatomical Circulus Willisii (pentagonal vascular circle at the base of the brain) to the neuronal acetylcholine receptor having a pentagonal molecular structure.

Brubeck’s "Take Five" helped me to understand this pentagonal brain universe. David Warren Brubeck died on Dec. 05, 2012, morning. I heard his "Take Five" for the first time when I was about 15 years old and even with my then very limited capacity to understand jazz music, I was greatly impressed by that piece. "Take Five" (that became the Brubeck quartet's theme) was a musical milestone deviated from the standard 4/4 time (or 3/4 waltz time) of Western music using the unusual quintuple (5/4) time. This CEREBRART work illustrates Brubeck’s pentagonal universe.

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CEREBRART - painting the island of Reil

The human insula (or island of Reil) is an evolutionary old (paleocortex) and entirely hidden brain structure, a polymodal integrative zone, implicated in a large number of different functions and dysfunctions. E.g. insular cortex is intensely activated by painful stimuli or foul stimuli such as rotting fish and is responsible for the processing of social emotions related to the current motivational state. In the mature brain the insular cortex is situated in the depths of the lateral sulcus and revealed only when the banks of the lateral sulcus are partially separated or when the brain is dissected. The insula passed through a progressive differentiation during terrestrial vertebrata evolution, and is greatly expanded in humans playing an important role in the extended integrated action cycle (that starts in Integration, Information, Motivation, Intention and Volition, and culminates in Action and Reflection).

Fishes use a special sensory system to obtain information about minute water movements: the lateral line system. The lateral line system decodes the information in the water surrounding the fish to enable the fish to identify and localize the source of the perturbation. From the lateral-line system of fishes evolved the vestibular system of terrestrial vertebrata which deals with equilibrium and position in space and ascending thalamocortical projection from the vestibular nuclei to the insular cortex which is important in the conscious awareness of head motion, balance, orientation, appropriate actions and integration/memorization of the paths taken. Likely, the insula is one of the most changed regions of the human brain. This CEREBRART work illustrates an evolutionary trend in the island of Reil development.

 

CEREBRART - PAIN INFORMATION

Pain (an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential damage, or described in terms of such damage) gives nociceptive information to the brain about injuries, helps to survive and is probably far more complicated than the other perceptual modalities. The three stages of pain information transmission can be recognized. Firstly, pain information is generated using peripheral receptors (nociceptors). Secondly, transmission of pain information from the periphery to the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. Passage of pain information to higher brain centers, leading to the third stage of pain affect, motivation to reduce pain  and appropriate action. Humans do something because it gives them pleasure or because it helps to avoid pain.

So, pain information generates both sensations and motivations to act and is distributed to many brain areas, which reflects its tremendous evolutionary significance for survival. The central processing of pain information includes transmission to brain stem centers, where autonomic nervous system responses are recruited, to the limbic system, where the emotional components of pain are experienced, and to the cortex, where pain information is perceived and interpreted, It has been shown that painful stimuli activate a vast network of cortical areas, involved in the generation of painful percepts and including the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, the insula, posterior parietal cortex, anterior and mid-cingulate cortex, and parts of the prefrontal cortex. This CEREBRART work illustrates nociceptive regions in parasylvian cortex that are involved in processing pain information.