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In "The Most Beautiful Painting You Ever Heard," Virginia Hughes of Seed magazine exploses the work of synesthete artist Marcia Smilack. (Brain Waves readers were first introduced Marcia's work a year ago in 3D Rooms - Visual Perception Art Tricks)

Smilack belongs to the group of one to four percent of people worldwide with synesthesia, the neurological mixing of the senses. No two synesthetes have exactly the same perceptual experiences. Many perceive each number, letter of the alphabet, or day of the week as a different color. For others, sounds from the environment are always accompanied by moving geometric patterns in their "mind's eye. Smilack has a rare form of synesthesia that involves all of her senses—the sound of one female voice looks like a thin, bending sheet of metal, and the sight of a certain fishing shack gives her a brief taste of Neapolitan ice cream—but her artistic leanings are shared by many other synesthetes... (I highly recommend a look at Marcia's galleries)

"Until seven or eight years ago, it was still a long-standing question whether the things these people were saying, this synesthesia, was real or bogus," said Vilayanur Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego. Subsequent experiments by Ramachandran and others using brain scanners also confirmed that synesthesia is a genuine sensory experience. Ramachandran says that since the areas of the brain that are activated by color are adjacent to those activated by number, synesthesia might be a result of some kind of "cross wiring" in the brain. "When we're born, the brain has all kinds of connections, and these gradually get pruned," Ramachandran said. "So synesthesia might be a mutation of this pruning gene, or set of genes, so that adjacent areas don't get separated."

As neuroesthetics, the study of the neurobiology of artistic creativity and achievement, continues to expand, new forms of art like Marcia's will emerge at the nexus of our new knowledge of brain and what it can create. Just as information technology has made new forms of art possible like brain wave synthesizers, digital banners and electronica, neurotechnology will surely play an important role in the ever evolving world of art, architecture and entertainment in the years to come.

What does a Kandisky sound like anyway?

"What is this thing called love, which has been described as “a catastrophe – but a highly desirable catastrophe” and in the service of which humans have reached the heights and plumbed the depths of experience? Why is our judgment often blurred or suspended when we fall passionately in love? Why does it lead to euphoria and depression? What is its chemistry? Which areas of the brain become engaged when we fall in love and when we view our lovers, or when we make love? Why are voles and birds and humans sometimes monogamous and sometimes polygamous? Why does the world literature of love so often paint a gloomy picture - of adulterous lovers who seek an escape in its, and their own, annihilation - and what neurobiological lessons can we draw from that literature?"

Come and listen to leading neurobiologists from America and Europe discussing these issues and presenting their latest findings at the Sixth International Meeting on Neuroesthetics which will take place on Saturday, January 20, 2007 on the UC Berkeley campus. I'll see you there.

Every January I like to circle back around to one of the most fun and fascinating areas of brain research, the emerging field of neuroesthetics, the study of the neurobiology of artistic creativity and achievement. In years past I have written posts on the "Flavors of Experience", "Empathy and Art in the Brain", Celebrating Obsessive Art and "Emotions in Art and the Brain". While the substance of these previous posts were scientific conferences, this year the NYTimes finally caught up on the subject with a excellent article on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section on December 31. Written by Clive Thompson, "Music of the Hemispheres" follows the musical life and research of Dr. Daniel Levitin who has been studying musical abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that leaves people with low intelligence but high levels of music ability.

In his research he has also been scanning the brains of listeners trying to answer questions like "Are our brains wired for sound?", "Does the brain experience a live performance different from a recorded one?" and "Why are pop music memories be so sharply encoded (in our brain)?" In trying to answer the last question he hypothesized that perhaps music triggers the reward centers in our brains. From the Times article:

In a study published last year Dr. Levitin and group of neuroscientists mapped out precisely how. Observing 13 subjects who listened to classical music while in an M.R.I. machine, the scientists found a cascade of brain-chemical activity. First the music triggered the forebrain, as it analyzed the structure and meaning of the tune. Then the nucleus accumbus (actually the area is called the nucleus accumbens)and ventral tegmental area activated to release dopamine, a chemical that triggers the brain’s sense of reward.

The cerebellum, an area normally associated with physical movement, reacted too, responding to what Dr. Levitin suspected was the brain’s predictions of where the song was going to go. As the brain internalizes the tempo, rhythm and emotional peaks of a song, the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension (that is, subtle deviations from its normal melody or tempo).

“When we saw all this activity going on precisely in sync, in this order, we knew we had the smoking gun,” he said. “We’ve always known that music is good for improving your mood. But this showed precisely how it happens.”

The subtlest reason that pop music is so flavorful to our brains is that it relies so strongly on timbre. Timbre is a peculiar blend of tones in any sound; it is why a tuba sounds so different from a flute even when they are playing the same melody in the same key. Popular performers or groups, Dr. Levitin argued, are pleasing not because of any particular virtuosity, but because they create an overall timbre that remains consistent from song to song. That quality explains why, for example, I could identify even a single note of Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.”

Every January I like to circle back around to one of the most fun and fascinating areas of brain research, the emerging field of neuroesthetics, the study of the neurobiology of artistic creativity and achievement. In years past I have written posts on the "Flavors of Experience", "Empathy and Art in the Brain", Celebrating Obsessive Art and "Emotions in Art and the Brain". While the substance of these previous posts were scientific conferences, this year the NYTimes finally caught up on the subject with a excellent article on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section on December 31. Written by Clive Thompson, "Music of the Hemispheres" follows the musical life and research of Dr. Daniel Levitin who has been studying musical abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that leaves people with low intelligence but high levels of music ability. In his research he has also been scanning the brains of listeners trying to answer questions like "Are our brains wired for sound?", "Does the brain experience a live performance different from a recorded one?" and "Why are pop music memories be so sharply encoded (in our brain)?" In trying to answer the last question he hypothesized that perhaps music triggers the reward centers in our brains. From the Times article: In a study published last year Dr. Levitin and group of neuroscientists mapped out precisely how. Observing 13 subjects who listened to classical music while in an M.R.I. machine, the scientists found a cascade of brain-chemical activity. First the music triggered the forebrain, as it analyzed the structure and meaning of the tune. Then the nucleus accumbus (actually the area is called the nucleus accumbens)and ventral tegmental area activated to release dopamine, a chemical that triggers the brain’s sense of reward. The cerebellum, an area normally associated with physical movement, reacted too, responding to what Dr. Levitin suspected was the brain’s predictions of where the song was going to go. As the brain internalizes the tempo, rhythm and emotional peaks of a song, the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension (that is, subtle deviations from its normal melody or tempo). “When we saw all this activity going on precisely in sync, in this order, we knew we had the smoking gun,” he said. “We’ve always known that music is good for improving your mood. But this showed precisely how it happens.” The subtlest reason that pop music is so flavorful to our brains is that it relies so strongly on timbre. Timbre is a peculiar blend of tones in any sound; it is why a tuba sounds so different from a flute even when they are playing the same melody in the same key. Popular performers or groups, Dr. Levitin argued, are pleasing not because of any particular virtuosity, but because they create an overall timbre that remains consistent from song to song. That quality explains why, for example, I could identify even a single note of Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.”

"What is this thing called love, which has been described as “a catastrophe – but a highly desirable catastrophe” and in the service of which humans have reached the heights and plumbed the depths of experience? Why is our judgment often blurred or suspended when we fall passionately in love? Why does it lead to euphoria and depression? What is its chemistry? Which areas of the brain become engaged when we fall in love and when we view our lovers, or when we make love? Why are voles and birds and humans sometimes monogamous and sometimes polygamous? Why does the world literature of love so often paint a gloomy picture - of adulterous lovers who seek an escape in its, and their own, annihilation - and what neurobiological lessons can we draw from that literature?" Come and listen to leading neurobiologists from America and Europe discussing these issues and presenting their latest findings at the Sixth International Meeting on Neuroesthetics which will take place on Saturday, January 20, 2007 on the UC Berkeley campus. I'll see you there.