Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

With the rapid advancement of technology and physics in the 20^th century came our ability to better investigate the brain, and this ultimately led to rising interest in neuroscience. In Neuroculture Frazzetto and Anker describe how neuroscience seeks to answer questions that will ultimately reveal aspects of our individuality. They also discuss how work in neuroscience has impacted the arts community. One I found particularly intriguing was Susan Aldworth’s ‘Between a Thing and a Thought,’ which incorporates fMRI photos of her brain that she drew upon, giving the definition of ‘self’ in ‘self-portrait’ a more modern meaning.

But what’s a more rigorous explanation of ‘thought’ and consciousness? The Arisaka Lab at UCLA seeks to understand the origin of consciousness itself by mapping the brain behavior of C. Elegans under various environments and stimuli. The C. Elegans were chosen specifically due to their relatively simple brain (only 302 neurons vs. 100 billion in humans) and because of the relative ease of working with them. The process of this study involves supplying an external stimulation, determining how the neurons react to this, and the steps that lead to the excitation of motor neurons to respond to the stimuli.

The neuron mapping of C. Elegans.
http://home.physics.ucla.edu/~arisaka/home/Biophysics/CElegans/files/stacks_image_131.png

A different study of the brain involves the unconscious. While this term was first used by Friedrich Schelling, it gained popularity thanks to Sigmund Freud, who claimed a larger part of the mind’s processes took place in the unconscious. He believed dreams were gateways to the unconscious, and psychoanalysis was the way to interpret dreams. Carl Jung advanced several of Freud’s ideas about the unconscious further, making claims such as “It is, however, true that much of the evil in the world comes from the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious”  in his The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man.

A picture of Freud's idea of the levels of the brain. Much like an iceberg, the bulk of it is below the surface.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Structural-Iceberg.svg/849px-Structural-Iceberg.svg.png

Of course, we cannot sneak up on the unconscious and take a photo to prove that it’s there, so we must look for indirect methods of studying it. I believe seeing the effects of psychedelic substances provides insight on parts of the mind to which we do not have access. Dr. Albert Hofmann, the first person to create LSD, stated that it gave him a “mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality.” Aside from hinting at the existence of brain processes the un-altered mind does not have access to, this demonstrates the curious nature of the brain—how just a few micrograms of a certain substance can open a world previously undreamed of. 

An artistic interpretation of the effects of LSD.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs6/i/2005/113/3/7/LSD_by_RipRoaringReverend.jpg

Works Cited: 

"Carl Jung - Collective Unconscious." Carl Jung - Collective Unconscious.  Web. 17 May 2015. <http://www.carl-jung.net/collective_unconscious.html>.

Devlin, Hannah. "What Is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)?" Psych Central. Web. 17 May 2015. <http://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-fmri/0001056>.

Ferro, Shaunacy. "Why Doctors Can't Give You LSD (But Maybe They Should)." Popular Science. Web. 17 May 2015. <http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/new-science-lsd-therapy>.

"Katsuhi Arisaka at UCLA - C. Elegans." Katsuhi Arisaka at UCLA - C. Elegans.  Web. 17 May 2015. <http://home.physics.ucla.edu/~arisaka/home/CElegans/>.

McLeod, Saul. "Unconscious Mind | Simply Psychology." Unconscious Mind | Simply Psychology. Web. 17 May 2015. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html>.