Revealing Rembrandt

The power and significance of artwork in shaping human cognition is self-evident. The starting point for our empirical investigations is the view that the task of neuroscience is to integrate itself with other forms of knowledge, rather than to seek to supplant them. In our recent work, we examined a particular aspect of the appreciation of artwork using present-day functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our results emphasized the continuity between viewing artwork and other human cognitive activities. We also showed that appreciation of a particular aspect of artwork, namely authenticity, depends upon the co-ordinated activity between the brain regions involved in multiple decision making and those responsible for processing visual information. The findings about brain function probably have no specific consequences for understanding how people respond to the art of Rembrandt in comparison with their response to other artworks. However, the use of images of Rembrandt’s portraits, his most intimate and personal works, clearly had a significant impact upon our viewers, even though they have been spatially confined to the interior of an MRI scanner at the time of viewing. Neuroscientific studies of humans viewing artwork have the capacity to reveal the diversity of human cognitive responses that may be induced by external advice or context as people view artwork in a variety of frameworks and settings.

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Mathematical beauty activates same brain region as great art or music

People who appreciate the beauty of mathematics activate the same part of their brain when they look at aesthetically pleasing formula as others do when appreciating art or music, suggesting that there is a neurobiological basis to beauty.

There are many different sources of beauty - a beautiful face, a picturesque landscape, a great symphony are all examples of beauty derived from sensory experiences. But there are other, highly intellectual sources of beauty. Mathematicians often describe mathematical formulae in emotive terms and the experience of mathematical beauty has often been compared by them to the experience of beauty derived from the greatest art.

In a new paper published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to image the brain activity of 15 mathematicians when they viewed mathematical formulae that they had previously rated as beautiful, neutral or ugly. 

The results showed that the experience of mathematical beauty correlates with activity in the same part of the emotional brain – namely the medial orbito-frontal cortex – as the experience of beauty derived from art or music.

Professor Semir Zeki, lead author of the paper from the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL, said: “To many of us mathematical formulae appear dry and inaccessible but to a mathematician an equation can embody the quintescence of beauty. The beauty of a formula may result from simplicity, symmetry, elegance or the expression of an immutable truth. For Plato, the abstract quality of mathematics expressed the ultimate pinnacle of beauty.”

“This makes it interesting to learn whether the experience of beauty derived from such as highly intellectual and abstract source as mathematics correlates with activity in the same part of the emotional brain as that derived from more sensory, perceptually based, sources.”

In the study, each subject was given 60 mathematical formulae to review at leisure and rate on a scale of -5 (ugly) to +5 (beautiful) according to how beautiful they experienced them to be. Two weeks later they were asked to re-rate them while in an fMRI scanner.

The formulae most consistently rated as beautiful (both before and during the scans) were Leonhard Euler’s identity, the Pythagorean identity and the Cauchy-Riemann equations. Leonhard Euler’s identity links five fundamental mathematical constants with three basic arithmetic operations each occurring once and the beauty of this equation has been likened to that of the soliloquy in Hamlet.

Mathematicians judged Srinivasa Ramanujan’s infinite series and Riemann’s functional equation as the ugliest.

Professor Zeki said: “We have found that activity in the brain is strongly related to how intense people declare their experience of beauty to – even in this example where the source of beauty is extremely abstract. This answers a critical question in the study of aesthetics, namely whether aesthetic experiences can be quantified.”

Professor Zeki added: “We have found that, as with the experience of visual or musical beauty, the activity in the brain is strongly related to how intense people declare their experience of beauty to be – even in this example where the source of beauty is extremely abstract. This answers a critical question in the study of aesthetics, one which has been debated since classical times, namely whether aesthetic experiences can be quantified.”

Art preserves skills despite onset of vascular dementia in ‘remarkable’ case of a Canadian sculptor

The ability to draw spontaneously as well as from memory may be preserved in the brains of artists long after the deleterious effects of vascular dementia have diminished their capacity to complete simple, everyday tasks, according to a new study by physicians at St. Michael’s Hospital.

The finding, scheduled to be released today in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, looked at the last few years of the late Mary Hecht, an internationally renowned sculptor, who was able to draw spur-of-the moment and detailed sketches of faces and figures, including from memory, despite an advanced case of vascular dementia.

"Art opens the mind," said Dr. Luis Fornazzari, neurological consultant at St. Michael’s Hospital’s Memory Clinic and lead author of the paper. "Mary Hecht was a remarkable example of how artistic abilities are preserved in spite of the degeneration of the brain and a loss in the more mundane, day-to-day memory functions."

Hecht, who died in April 2013 at 81, had been diagnosed with vascular dementia and was wheelchair-bound due to previous strokes. Despite her vast knowledge of art and personal talent, she was unable to draw the correct time on a clock, name certain animals or remember any of the words she was asked to recall.

But she quickly sketched an accurate portrait of a research student from the Memory Clinic. And she was able to draw a free-hand sketch of a lying Buddha figurine and reproduce it from memory a few minutes later. To the great delight of St. Michael’s doctors, Hecht also drew an accurate sketch of famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich after she learned of his death earlier that day on the radio.

While she was drawing and showing medical staff her own creations, Hecht spoke eloquently and without hesitation about art.

"This is the most exceptional example of the degree of preservation of artistic skills we’ve seen in our clinic," said Dr. Corinne Fischer, director at St. Michael’s Hospital’s Memory Clinic and another of the paper’s authors. "As well, most of the other studies that have been done in this area looked at other kinds of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease or frontal temporal dementia, while this is a case of cognitive reserve in a patient with fairly advanced vascular dementia."

Dr. Fornazzari previously wrote a paper detailing a musician who, despite declining health because of Alzheimer’s disease, could still play the piano and learn new music. As well, in October 2011, Dr. Fischer and colleagues looked at bilingual patients with Alzheimer’s and discovered they had twice as much cognitive reserve as their unilingual counterparts.

Educators should take a page from these results and encourage schools to teach the arts – whether sculpture, painting or music – rather than cutting back on them, said Dr. Fornazzari. “Art should be taught to everyone. It’s better than many medications and is as important as mathematics or history.”

Both physicians want to lead a larger study of artists with neurological illnesses to further explore the importance of art and cognitive brain capacity.

Hidden Beauty: Exploring the Aesthetics of Medical Science

This collaborative project by a scientist and artist asks the reader to consider the aesthetics of human disease, both within and beyond the context of our preconceived social systems. Disease is a dynamically powerful force of nature that acts without regard to race, religion or culture. These forces create visually stunning patterns with a remarkable ability to evoke human emotion in isolation that differs when viewed in the context of the disease that produced the image. We see beauty in the delicate lacework of fungal hyphae invading a blood vessel, the structure of the normal cerebellum, and the desperate drive of metastasizing cancer cells. However, the appreciation of the imagery produced by disease is bittersweet; we simultaneously experience the beauty of the natural world and the pain of those living with these disease processes. Ultimately, this series of images will leave the viewer with an appreciation of visual beauty inherent within the medical sciences.

(Image: Alzheimer’s research, Phillip Wong PhD)

Art appreciation is measureable

Is it your own innate taste or what you have been taught that decides if you like a work of art? Both, according to an Australian-Norwegian research team.

Have you experienced seeing a painting or a play that has left you with no feelings whatsoever, whilst a friend thought it was beautiful and meaningful? Experts have argued for years about the feasibility of researching art appreciation, and what should be taken into consideration.

Neuroscientists believe that biological processes that take place in the brain decide whether one likes a work of art or not. Historians and philosophers say that this is far too narrow a viewpoint. They believe that what you know about the artist’s intentions, when the work was created, and other external factors, also affect how you experience a work of art.

Building bridges
A new model that combines both the historical and the psychological approach has been developed.

• We think that both traditions are just as important, although incomplete. We want to show that they complement each other, says Rolf Reber, Professor of Psychology at the University of Bergen. Together with Nicolas Bullot, Doctor of Philosophy at the Macquarie University in Australia, he has developed a new model to help us understand art appreciation. The results have been published in ‘Behavioral and Brain Sciences’ and are commented on by 27 scientists from different disciplines.

• Neuroscientists often measure brain activity to find out how much a testee likes a work of art, without investigating whether he or she actually understands the work. This is insufficient, as artistic understanding also affects assessment, says Reber.

Eye-opening experience
- We know from earlier research that a painting that is difficult – yet possible – to interpret, is felt to be more meaningful than a painting that one looks at and understands immediately. The painter, Eugène Delacroix, made use of this fact to depict war. Joseph Mallord William Turner did the same in ‘Snow storm’. When you have to struggle to understand, you can have an eye-opening experience, which the brain appreciates, explains Reber.

He hopes that other scientists will use the Australian-Norwegian model.
- By measuring brain activity, interviewing test persons about thoughts and reactions, and charting their artistic knowledge, it’s possible to gain new and exciting insight into what makes people appreciate good works of art. The model can be used for visual art, music, theatre and literature, says Reber.

Painting through the power of thought enabled by scientists

To the viewer it is an accomplished semiabstract image of flowers and clouds, but in fact this painting was produced by a paralysed woman solely through the power of thought.

Can Brain Scans Really Tell Us What Makes Something Beautiful?

When art meets neuroscience, strange things happen.

Consider the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art in Oregon which features rugs and knitting based on a brain scan motif. Or the neuroscientist at the University of Nevada-Reno who scanned the brain of a portrait artist while he drew a picture of a face.

And then there’s the ongoing war of words between scientists who think it’s possible to use analysis of brain activity to define beauty–or even art–and their critics who argue that it’s absurd to try to make sense of something so interpretive and contextual by tying it to biology and the behavior of neurons.

Beauty and the brain

On one side you have the likes of Semir Zeki, who heads a research center called the Institute of Neuroesthetics at London’s University College. A few years ago he started studying what happens in a person’s brain when they look at a painting or listen to a piece of music they find beautiful. He looked at the flip side, too–what goes on in there when something strikes us as ugly.

What he found is that when his study’s subjects experienced a piece of art or music they described as beautiful, their medial orbito-frontal cortex–the part of the brain just behind the eyes–”lit up” in brain scans. Art they found ugly stimulated their motor cortex instead. Zeki also discovered that whether the beauty came through their ears, in music, or their eyes, in art, the brain’s response was the same–it had increased blood flow to what’s known as its pleasure center. Beauty gave the brains a dopamine reward.

Zeki doesn’t go so far as to suggest that the essence of art can be captured in a brain scan. He insists his research really isn’t about explaining what art is, but rather what our neurons’ response to it can tell us about how brains work. But if, in the process, we learn about common characteristics in things our brains find beautiful, his thinking goes, what harm is there in that?

Beware of brain rules?

Plenty, potentially, responds the critics’ chorus. Writing recently in the journal Nature, Philip Ball makes the point that this line of research ultimately could lead to rule-making about beauty, to “creating criteria of right or wrong, either in the art itself or in individual reactions to it.” It conceivably could devolve to “scientific” formulas for beauty, guidelines for what, in music or art or literature, gets the dopamine flowing.

Adds Ball:

Although it is worth knowing that musical ‘chills’ are neurologically akin to the responses invoked by sex or drugs, an approach that cannot distinguish Bach from barbiturates is surely limited.

Others, such as University of California philosophy professor Alva Noe, suggest that to this point at least, brain science is too limiting in what it can reveal, that it focuses more on beauty as shaped by people’s preferences, as opposed to addressing the big questions, such as “Why does art move us?” and “Why does art matter?”

And he wonders if a science built around analyzing events in an individual’s brain can ever answer them. As he wrote in the New York Times:

…there can be nothing like a settled, once-and-for-all account of what art is, just as there can be no all-purpose account of what happens when people communicate or when they laugh together. Art, even for those who make it and love it, is always a question, a problem for itself. What is art? The question must arise, but it allows no definitive answer.

Fad or fortune?

So what of neuroaesthetics? Is it just another part of the “neuro” wave, where brain scans are being billed as neurological Rosetta Stones that proponents claim can explain or even predict behavior–from who’s likely to commit crimes to why people make financial decisions to who’s going to gain weight in the next six months.

More jaded souls have suggested that neuroaesthetics and its bulky cousin, neurohumanities, are attempts to capture enough scientific sheen to attract research money back to liberal arts. Alissa Quart, writing in The Nation earlier this month, cut to the chase:

Neurohumanities offers a way to tap the popular enthusiasm for science and, in part, gin up more funding for humanities. It may also be a bid to give more authority to disciplines that are more qualitative and thus are construed, in today’s scientized and digitalized world, as less desirable or powerful.

Samir Zeki, of course, believes this is about much more than research grants. He really isn’t sure where neuroaesthetics will lead, but he’s convinced that only by “understanding the neural laws,” as he puts it, can we begin to make sense of morality, religion and yes, art.

Stroke turned ex-con into rhyming painter

Name: Tommy McHugh
Disorder: Sudden artistic output following brain damage

"I was sitting on the toilet. I suddenly felt an explosion in the left side of my head and ended up on the floor. I think the only thing that kept me conscious was that I didn’t want to be found with my pants down. Then the other side of my head went bang! I woke up in hospital and looked out of the window to see the tree was sprouting numbers. 3, 6, 9. Then I started talking in rhyme…"

Ten days after having a subarachnoid haemorrhage – a stroke caused by bleeding in and around the brain – Tommy McHugh, an ex-con who’d been in his fair share of scraps, became a new man, with a personality that nobody recognised.

When he was a young man, Tommy did time in prison. But after his stroke at age 51, everything changed. “I could taste the femininity inside of myself,” he said. “My head was full of rhymes and images and pictures.”

Not only did he feel a sudden urge to write poetry, but he also began to paint and draw obsessively for up to 19 hours a day. He was never artistic before – in fact, he joked that he’d never even been in an art gallery “except to maybe steal something”.

Desperate to find out what was going on, Tommy wrote to several neuroscientists and end up working closely with Alice Flaherty at Harvard Medical School and Mark Lythgoe at University College London.

Going Zen

Flaherty says the haemorrhage sent blood squirting around the brain surface, affecting a lot of areas. It left Tommy unusually emotional and unable to hurt anyone, “like Zen monks sweeping steps before they walk,” says Flaherty. “Everything strikes him as beautiful and cosmically meaningful.”

Scanning Tommy’s brain was impossible after an operation to treat the stroke damage left him with a piece of metal in his head. Instead, Lythgoe performed a neuropsychological evaluation. Tommy’s IQ was in the normal range. However, he showed verbal disinhibition – he tended to talk a lot – and had difficulty with tests that required him to switch between different cognitive tasks. All of which suggested problems with the frontal lobes.

The frontal lobes play a vital role in abstract thought and creativity. They are constantly bombarded with raw sensory data from the world around us, most of which is deemed irrelevant by the brain and screened from conscious awareness. Blocking this inhibition using magnetic pulses can make people more creative, even unleashing savant-like skills.

"That’s what Tommy’s mind does all the time," says Lythgoe. Everything he heard and saw triggered a stream of associations that he found difficult to stop. Tommy saw it as having a brain that shows him "endless, endless corridors". He said his paintings represented a snapshot of a millisecond in his brain.

"I’ll paint three or six or nine pictures at a time. I see those numbers in my head all the time. Canvases became too costly, so I started painting the ceilings and the wallpaper and the floor. I can’t stop painting and sculpting. Give me a mountain and I’ll turn it into a profile. If you give me a bare tree I’ll change it, so when spring come all the leaves will create the face, the mouth, the lips. Without hurting the tree."

Offering advice for others with brain damage, he said that people who have had strokes need to learn not to think of themselves as ill, with the dangers of depression that can bring. “Some repairs to the brain are constructive, some are negative. One has to learn to develop one’s damaged brain, adapt and start to live again. You can either sit on your bum or look in the mirror and say ‘I’m alive’.”

He wouldn’t even have wanted his old mind back: “The most wonderful thing that happened to Tommy McHugh,” he laughed, “is having a stroke while doing a poo.”

He wouldn’t have changed a thing. “My two strokes have given me 11 years of a magnificent adventure that nobody could have expected.”

Tommy McHugh passed away on 19 September 2012, having spoken to New Scientist several times that year. Samples of his artwork can be viewed on his website.