Week 7: Neuroscience and Art

Sketch of cortex neurons by
Ramon Cajal
Photo from nobelprize.org

Video game Prey that involves mirror neurons
Photo from Bethesda 2017

            Neuroscience is still a very young field of science, only being around 100 years old, when compared to other sciences like chemistry or physics which have existed for millennia. However, with large leaps in knowledge, neuroscience has become more and more relevant to society and is slowly being integrated into popular culture. This has led to what Suzanne Anker has called “neuroculture”, where she says that “neuroscience knowledge partakes in our daily lives, social practices and intellectual discourses”. Examples can be seen in video games like Prey where one fights aliens that lack so called “mirror neurons” so that they cannot empathize with humans leading to conflicts.

    

        With large scale integration of neuroscience in popular culture, it generates awareness of factual science, but also causes pseudoscience to arise. It is dangerous as it can lead to an excuse to racially profile people in the case of phrenology which was used to justify the white man’s supremacy. It can also lead to the dangerous usage of drugs before they are understood. Examples include the use of LSD in the 1960’s recreationally. It was thought to have no large side effects; however, hallucinations can be unpredictable and lead to very dangerous acts that may cause physical harm and the drug itself increases the body’s temperature dramatically which can lead to hyperthermia and overheating. A more recent example includes the use of cannabis; the drug is known to be psychoactive, but the long-term effects are unknown, as are the side-effects.

            However, propagation of neuroscience in popular culture is helping to enrich culture by presenting new knowledge and offering a new perspective on how to view the world. People like Ramon Cajal, sometime referred to as the father of neuroscience, was originally an aspiring artist who later became a scientist. His background in the arts allowed him to draw stunning sketches of neurons wiring together and allowed the public to see the beauty of the brain. As a neuroscience major, it brings pleasure to me when I see other view images of brainbows, MRI images, or CAT scans that leave them stunned and in awe. Above is a video showing the beauty of neuroscience. A mouse is trained to run through a maze and scientists record when individual hippocampal neurons fire in the mouse's brain at particular points in the maze. Each color dot represents one neuron. The dots to the left of the screen show where in the hippocampus they are located and the colored dots on the maze represent where in the maze the neuron fires.

References

Bentivoglio, Marina. "Life And Discoveries Of Santiago Ramón Y Cajal". Nobelprize.Org, 1998, https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1906/cajal-article.html. Accessed 21 May 2018.

Bethesda. Prey. 2017, https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/agecheck. Accessed 21 May 2018.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. "Neuroculture". Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol 10, no. 11, 2009, pp. 815-821. Springer Nature, doi:10.1038/nrn2736.

Friedman, Steven Arthur. "Extreme Hyperthermia After LSD Ingestion". JAMA: The Journal Of The American Medical Association, vol 217, no. 11, 1971, p. 1549. American Medical Association (AMA), doi:10.1001/jama.1971.03190110067020.

Jung, C. G. Modern Man In Search Of A Soul. 1928.

Vesna, Victoria. Neuroscience Part 1. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI. Accessed 21 May 2018.

Wilson Lab at MIT. Hippocampal Place Cells Recorded In The Wilson Lab At MIT. 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfNVv0A8QvI. Accessed 21 May 2018.