How can your brain change itself?
Three neuroscience artists illustrate the way + a few other ideas
Welcome to The Lovely Brain’s Newsletter, a monthly conversation about the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. Catch issue 1 here. If you like what you read, consider subscribing. I hope you enjoy issue 2!
This week I watched the “Neuroscience as visual art” panel of the Neuromatch 3.0 conference. The panel initially caught my eye because one of the artists presenting was Greg Dunn, a neuroscientist whose “Self Reflected” is the most complex visualization of the human brain in existence.
Panelist Michele Banks enjoys making “art that’s about the thing that you’re making it with,” and that is exactly what is happening here. As I look at “Self Reflected,” I am watching my own brain perceive itself, as light bounces off the gilded microetched polymer plates in limitless ways.
The brain is both art object and artist, creator and creation. This is one of the governing principles of Laura Jade’s Brainlight, which uses dendrite-microetched perspex panels, a wireless EEG headset, and a computer program to translate the electrical activity of the viewer’s brain into light or sound. A brain producing slower, daydreamy theta waves will cause the brain to glow green, while a faster, but still relaxed, alpha brain state produces blue. The highest frequency—beta—creates an excited pink.
Brainlight is producing an artistic-neuroscientific-therapeutic experience. “What you’re seeing is a real-time representation of your own neural activity,” Laura says. She explains that experiencing the representation of brain function can then affect the brain’s function. The viewer can change her brain’s experience. Although much less aesthetically pleasing, neurofeedback is based on the same principle—the brain learns to alter its own function by observing itself.
These artists are on the frontier of illustrating how valuable and even aesthetically pleasing changing the brain can be. Neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire neural networks based on internal and external influences—is a foundational principle of healing the brain, and it is a principle that each of us need in our ever-changing relationship with our brains.
Neuroplasticity is not just for those with brain injuries, even though the kinds and types of injuries to the brain all of us experience day to day are truly astonishing and underappreciated as grounds for diagnosis when someone goes to the doctor or their psychiatrist with a problem. Learning how to work with neuroplasticity to heal and improve the quality of life for people with degenerative brain problems is the wave of the future.
By becoming more skilled individually at tying the physical structure, connectivity, and electrical activity of our nervous systems to our thoughts, sensations, and symptoms, then all people can become more mindful of how we use our own brains to change themselves and heal our brains and bodies. We can understand the etiology of our own pain and illnesses better and feel empowered to make small daily changes that put the brain and body in healing patterns.
We can supplement our own neuroplastic healing efforts with programs, devices, and exercises designed to elicit those changes. Exercises can be as simple as grounding on the grass, a breath sequence, or a yoga flow. Although we’re still in the early days of understanding, applying, and accepting neuroplasticity-based healing, I have seen the effects of neuroplasticity in my own life as I work to rewire my brain daily. If I can do it, so can you.
There will always be a science and an art to neuroplastic change. Our bodies are both science and art so perhaps we need both to heal. What is effective for me may not be effective for you. I’m grateful for these scientific artists paving the way for us all to better understand and appreciate our own beautiful brains.
A little book thought
The Brain’s Lectionary: Psalms and Observations is a book I have made about my brain! Like the artists above, I reflected on what it’s like to create with my unique individual brain, and I made words and art to express that. It’s a book meant to offer active support for those going through the jarring losses caused by neurological injury.
Image: praying hands and pyramidal neuron linocuts I printed for The Brain’s Lectionary
One of my hopes for The Brain’s Lectionary: Psalms and Observations is that as people read it they will reflect on their own brains. I hope it will provoke people to be increasingly curious about how their brain function contributes to their daily experience. Also, I want people to know that their astoundingly creative brains are perfectly unique and perfectly worthy of creating, whether they are feeling sick or well.
Keep your eyes peeled for the book release!
Deeper Dive
If you’re curious to know more about how your brain learns, check out The Brain Learns in Unexpected Ways, an article from Scientific American (hint: it’s all about myelination)
Ear Worm
This issue of The Lovely Brains Newsletter was inspired in part by illustrator Andy J. Pizza’s podcast Creative Pep Talk. His philosophy of creativity would definitely qualify as a neuroplastic approach (hint: it’s about showing up daily to play in the essence of who you really are and what your brain loves to do). What do you think? Once you’ve listened, come back here and let me know.
Free Coloring Page
Like the artists and panelists in this issue of TLBN, I love combining domains of knowledge, so I transformed an x-ray of my own skeleton into a coloring page. You can download the page free from my website and turn it into your brain’s own piece of art.
Thank you for joining me for this month’s edition of The Lovely Brain’s Newsletter. Please subscribe and share. I hope this month finds you creating new connections among your many passions and growing and changing your beautiful brain!