Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Brain Research and Art?—A Short History of Neurological Research and Creative Expression

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Art and Neurological Disorders

Part of the book series: Current Clinical Neurology ((CCNEU))

Abstract

This chapter provides a concise working review and critical examination of the long history of scientific and neurological interest in art as it intersects with research about the brain. Examining the historical connections between aesthetic practices and compositional performances with the constitution of the changing or atypical brain offers interesting epistemological insights into the relationship between art and neurodegenerative disease at the intersection of illness and creativity. This regards the aesthetical, practical, and methodological foundations of human creativity and neuroscientific imagery throughout time. The current chapter studies several profound issues regarding classical empirical “styles” in neurophysiology and brain research, including how knowledge is generated in the laboratory and the neurological clinic. Contemporary practices of investigation and communication in brain research have appeared to move the arts and neurosciences ever more apart yet, in fact, through analyzing and appreciating artistic elements such as visual beauty, aesthetic practices, as well as the emotional appreciation of research data and clinical insights, these two fields can be brought closer together. This chapter thus circumscribes—through taking a historical and critical perspective—the turning points where physiological recording devices have broken through the boundaries of human perception as well as aesthetic judgments and deductions by researchers and clinicians. It offers good reasons and tangible examples why modern-day clinical neurologists and bench neuroscientists should start to appreciate the richness of their own creative solutions and aesthetic concepts, as these are deeply ingrained in every system used or innovated in the sciences of the brain. The artistic presentations, aesthetical criteria of their selection, along with the interrelation of visual products in the arts have only recently become the subject of considerable historiographical research (Dierig and Schmidgen, Physiological and psychological practices in the 19th century: Their relation to literature, art and technology. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2001). While this broad tendency began in areas of art history and media studies, the historiography of clinical neuroscience has now participated in these new analytical perspectives. The fundamental epistemological questions of creative expression, the relationship between life science practices and the diagnostic views of neurological disorders remain unfortunately quite under-explored. The “iconic turn” (Nikolow and Bluma, NTM 10:201–8, 2002) and the investigation of “visual cultures” (Heintz and Huber, Mit den Augen denken. Voldemeer: Strategien der Sichtbarmachung. Vienna, 2001) moved in the direction towards more in-depth analyses of the media products as well as the practical aesthetic means of modern brain research, in the way they are received in this historically and epistemologically focused chapter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Dierig S, Schmidgen H, editors. Physiological and psychological practices in the 19th century: their relation to literature, art and technology. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Nikolow S, Bluma L. Images in the public sphere and scientific practice. NTM. 2002;10(2):201–8.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Heintz B, Huber J, editors. Mit den Augen denken. Voldemeer: Strategien der Sichtbarmachung. Vienna; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Canguilhem G. History of the life sciences (trans. Waldo Cohn). London: Routledge; 1968. p. 19.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Scott J, Stoekli E, editors. Neuromedia: art and neuroscience research. Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Ortega F, Vidal F. Neurocultures: glimpses into an expanding universe. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Boehm G. Wie Bilder Sinn erzeugen: Die Macht des Zeigens. Berlin: Berlin University Press; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Marschall S, Bauer M, Liptay F, editors. Kunst und Kognition: Interdisziplinaere Studien zur Erzeugung von Bildsinn. Munich: Fink; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Wade N. Deceiving the brain: pictures and visual perception. Progr Brain Res. 2013;204(1):115–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Århem B, Lindhal IB. Neuroscience and the problem of consciousness: theoretical and empirical approaches. An introduction. Theor Med Bioeth. 1993;14(2):77–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hyman J. Art and neuroscience. In: Frigg R, Hunter MC, editors. Beyond mimesis and convention. Boston, MA: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science; 2010. p. 101–40.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Rheinberger HJ. The art of exploring the unknown: views on contemporary research in the life sciences. In: Epple M, Zittel C, editors. Cultures and politics of research from the early modern period to the age of extremes. Berlin: Akademie Verlag; 2010. p. 141–51.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Sturdy S. Looking for trouble: Medical science and clinical practice in the historiography of modern medicine. Soc Hist Med. 2011;24(4):739–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lakatos I. Popper on demarcation and induction. In: Schilpp PA, editor. The philosophy of Karl Popper, vol. 1. La Salle, Ill: Open Court; 1974. p. 241–73.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Pickering A, editor. Science as practice and culture. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press; 1994. p. 431–3.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Bynum W. Science and the practice of medicine in the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Rheinberger HJ. Toward a history of epistemic things: synthesizing proteins in the test tube. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Coleman W. The cognitive basis of the discipline. Claude Bernard on physiology. Isis. 1985;76(1):49–70.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Stahnisch FW. Historical and philosophical perspectives on experimental practice in medicine and the life sciences. Theor Med Bioeth. 2005;26(4):397–425.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Lenoir T. The strategy of life: teleology and mechanics in nineteenth-century German biology. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press; 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Bierbrodt J. Naturwissenschaft und Aesthetik, 1750–1810. Wuerzburg: Koenigshausen & Neumann; 2000. p. 6. author’s trans.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Rousseau G, editor. Nervous acts: essays on literature, culture and sensibility. London: Palgrave Macmillan; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Daston L, Galison P. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books; 2010. pp. 115–24.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Bredekamp H. The lure of antiquity and the cult of the machine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Baumgarten AG. Aesthetica. Jena: Johannes Christian Kleyb; 1750.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Poppe JG. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: seine Bedeutung und Stellung in der Leibniz-Wolffischen Philosophie und seine Beziehungen zu Kant; nebst Veroeffentlichung einer bisher unbekannten Handschrift der Aesthetik Baumgartens. Leipzig: Noske; 1907. p. 47.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Pelowski M, Specker E. The general impact of context on aesthetic experience. In: Nadal M, Vartanian O, editors. The Oxford handbook of empirical aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2020. p. 10. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/. 9780198824350.013.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Sturken M, Cartwright L. Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2017. p. 10.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Bichat X. Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort. 3rd ed. Paris: Brosson; 1805.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Mueller J. Ueber die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen. Coblenz: Johannes Hoelscher; 1826.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Der HM. Geist bei der Arbeit: Historische Untersuchungen zur Hirnforschung. Goettingen: Wallstein Verlag; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Magendie F. Précis élémentaire de la physiologie, vol. 1. Paris: Méquignon-Marvis; 1816–1817.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Lesch J. Science and medicine in France: the emergence of experimental physiology, 1790–1855. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1984.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  34. Dierig S. Urbanization, place of experiment and how the electric fish was caught by Emil Du Bois-Reymond. J Hist Neurosci. 2000;9(1):5–13.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Tanner J, Sarasin P. editors. Physiologie und industrielle Gesellschaft: Studien zur Verwissenschaftlichung des Koerpers im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Mueller-Wille S, Reinberger HJ. A cultural history of heredity. Chicago, Ill: Chicago University Press; 2012.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  37. Stevenson A. Technologies. In: Stevenson A, editor. Oxford English dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2012. p. 545.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Hirnstroeme BC. Eine Kulturgeschichte der Elektroenzephalographie. Goettingen: Wallstein; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Stahnisch FW. Ideas in Action: Der Funktionsbegriff und seine methodologische Rolle im Forschungsprogramm des Experimentalphysiologen François Magendie (1783–1855). Muenster: LIT; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Todes DP. Pavlov’s physiology factory: experiment, interpretation, laboratory enterprise. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Brain RM, Cohen RS, Knudsen O, editors. Hans Christian Ørsted and the romantic legacy in science: ideas, disciplines, practices. Dordrecht: Springer; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Daston L, Galison P. The image of objectivity. Representations. 2009;40(1):81–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Stahnisch FW. Instrument transfer as knowledge transfer in neurophysiology: François Magendie’s (1783–1855) early attempts to measure cerebrospinal fluid pressure. J Hist Neurosci. 2008;17(1):72–99.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Mayer A. The physiological circus: knowing, representing, and training horses in motion in nineteenth-century France. Representations. 2010;111(1):88–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. La CG. formation du concept de réflexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Vrin; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Daston L. Objectivity and the escape from perspective. Soc Stud Sci. 1992;22(4):597–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Cranefield P. The organic physics of 1847 and the biophysics of today. J Hist Med Allied Sci. 1957;12(4):407–23.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. Bruecke E. Die Physiologie der Farben fuer die Zwecke der Kunstgewerbe. Leipzig: S. Hirzel; 1866.

    Google Scholar 

  49. DuBois-Reymond E. Laboratory diary, experiments 1886–1889. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek; 1886–1889.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Helmholtz H. Treatise on physiological optics (trans. James P. C. Southall). Washington, D. C.: Optical Society of America; 1910.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Bernard C, Dumas JB, Bert P. La science expérimentale. Paris: J.B. Baillière; 1878.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Bernard C. qtd. after Drewsen S. Medizin: Wissenschaft oder Kunst? Wuerzb medhist Mittlgn 1989. 1878;7(1):45–53. author’s trans.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Clarke E, O’Malley CD. The human brain and spinal cord: a historical study illustrated by writings from antiquity to the twentieth century. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Norman; 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Finger S. The birth of localization theory. In: Finger S, Boller F, Tyler KL, editors. History of neurology: handbook of clinical neurology, 95th vol., 3rd ser. Edinburgh: Elsevier; 2010. p. 117–28.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Geimer P, editor. Ordnungen der Sichtbarkeit. Fotografie in Wissenschaft, Technologie und Kunst. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Grampp S, Kirchmann K. ‘Meine Herren, es geht das Geruecht um, dass ich ein Feind des Roentgenbildes bin:’ Der Arzt als Zeichenleser, Medienkritiker und Sinnstifter in populaeren Mediendiskursen. In: Stahnisch FW, Bauer H, editors. Bild und Gestalt. Wie formen Medienpraktiken das Wissen in Medizin und Humanwissenschaften? Hamburg: LIT Press; 2007. p. 181–98.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Bilderwissen KM. Die Anschaulichkeit naturwissenschaftlicher Phaenomene. Cologne: Dumont; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Kemp M. Sculpture: the brain in a nutshell. Nature. 2011;470(7333):173.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  59. Breidbach O. Die Materialisierung des Ichs: Zur Geschichte der Hirnforschung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp; 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  60. McLaughlin P. What functions explain: functional explanation and self-reproducing systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Lynch M. Representation is overrated: some critical remarks about the use of the concept of representation in science studies. Configurations. 1994;1(1):137–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Bredekamp H. The lure of antiquity and the cult of the machine. New York: Markus Wiener Publisher; 2010. p. 153.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Rheinberger HJ. Experiment, Differenz, Schrift. Zur Geschichte epistemischer Dinge. Marburg/Lahn: Basilisken-Presse; 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Gradmann C. Laboratory disease: Robert Koch’s medical bacteriology (trans. Elborg Forst). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Lynch M. Sacrifice and the transformation of the animal body into a scientific object: laboratory culture and ritual practice in the neurosciences. Soc Stud Sci. 1988;18(3):265–89.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  66. Stahnisch FW. Den Hunger standardisieren: François Magendies Fuetterungsversuche zur Gelatinekost 1831–1841. Med J. 2004;39(1):103–34.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Battin J. Autographs of physicians and famous scholars. Hist Sci Méd. 2006;40(1):129–40.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  68. Alzheimer A. Ueber einen eigenartigen schweren Erkrankungsprozess der Hirnrinde. Neurol Centrlbl. 1906;23(11):1129–36. author’s trans

    Google Scholar 

  69. Drouin E, Drouin G. The first report of Alzheimer’s disease. Lancet. 2017;16(9):687.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Engstrom E. Researching dementia in Imperial Germany: Alois Alzheimer and the economies of psychiatric practice. Cult Med Psych. 2007;31(4):405–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Stahnisch FW. A new field in mind: a history of interdisciplinarity in the early brain sciences. Montreal, PQ: McGill-Queens University Press; 2020. p. 184–6.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  72. Graeber MB. No man alone: the rediscovery of Alois Alzheimer’s original cases. Brain Pathol. 1999;9(2):237–40.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  73. Cartwright L. Screening the body: tracing medicine’s visual culture. St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Press; 1995. p. 48.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Foucault M. Birth of the clinic (trans. Alan mark Sheridan Smith). London: Routledge; 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Stahnisch F. L’image de la posture–––l’image du mouvement: Zum Verhaeltnis orthopaedischer und neurologischer Repraesentationsformen in der klinischen Photographie des 19. Jahrhunderts Wuerzb medhist Mittlgn. 2009;28(1):301–52.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Raichle M. The origins of functional brain imaging in humans. In: Finger S, Boller F, Tyler KL, editors. History of neurology: handbook of clinical neurology, 95th vol., 3rd ser. Edinburgh: Elsevier; 2010. p. 257–68.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Stahnisch FW. The language of visual representations in the neurosciences: relating past and future. Transl Neurosci. 2014;5(1):78–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Wade NJ. Vision and visualisation. J Hist Neurosci. 2008;17(3):274–94.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  79. Zeki S. Art and the Brain. Daedalus. 1998;127(2):71–103.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Skov M, Vartanian O, Martindale C, Berleant A, editors. Neuroaesthetics. Baywood: Amitiville, NY; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Vidal F. Historical and ethical perspectives of modern neuroimaging. In: Clausen J, Levy N, editors. Handbook of neuroethics. New York: Springer; 2014. p. 461–6.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Hagner M, Borck C. Mindful practices: on the neurosciences in the twentieth century. Sci Context/Special issue. 2001;14(4):507–10.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Berlucci G. The contributions of neurophysiology to clinical neurology: an exercise in contemporary history. In: Finger S, Boller F, Tyler KL, editors. History of neurology: handbook of clinical neurology, 95th vol., 3rd ser. Edinburgh, UK: Elsevier; 2010. p. 169–88.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Roland PE, Balázs G. Visual imagery and visual representation. Trends Neurosci. 1994;17(3):281–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  85. Stahnisch FW. Medicine, life and function: experimental strategies and medical modernity at the intersection of pathology and physiology. Bochum: Projektverlag; 2012. pp. 81–114

    Google Scholar 

  86. Smith K. Looking for the hidden signs of consciousness. Nature. 2007;446(1):355.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  87. Raichle ME. Functional brain imaging and human brain function. J Neurosci. 2003;23(10):3959–62.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  88. Carusi A, Sissel Hoel A, Webmoor T, Woolgar S, editors. Visualisation in the age of computerization. London: Routledge; 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  89. Liston AD, Bayford RH, Holder DS. The effect of layers in imaging brain function using electrical impedance tomography. Physiol Meas. 2004;25(1):143–58.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  90. Waldby C. The visible human project: Informatic bodies and posthuman medicine. London, UK: Routledge; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  91. Davies K. Cracking the genome: inside the race to unlock human DNA. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2002.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  92. Burleigh I, Suen G, Jacob C. DNA in action! A 3D swarm-based model of a gene regulatory system. In: ACAL, editor. First Australian conference on artificial life. Cranberra: ACAL; 2003. p. 69–94.

    Google Scholar 

  93. Caspers J, Zilles K, Beierle C, Rottschy C, Eickhoff SB. A novel meta-analytic approach: mining frequent co-activation patters in neuroimaging databases. NeuroImage. 2013;90(4):390–402.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  94. Hoefel L, Jacobson TF. Electrophysiological indices of processing aesthetics: Spontaeneous or intentional processes? Int J Psychophysiol. 2007;65(1):20–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  95. Smith LF. The science and aesthetics of astronomical images. Psychol Aesthet Creat Arts. 2014;8(4):506–13.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  96. Palmer SE, Schloss KB, Sammartino J. Visual aesthetics and human preference. Ann Rev Psychol. 2013;64(1):77–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  97. Gundling RL. How healthcare executives make buying decisions. Washington, D. C: Healthcare Financial Management Association; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  98. Barnes B, David E, editors. Science in context. Readings in the sociology of science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  99. Borck C. Recording the brain at work: the visible, the readable, and the invisible in electroencephalography. J Hist Neurosci. 2008;17(4):367–79.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  100. Sattar A. The aesthetics of laboratory inscription: Claude Bernard’s Cahier Rouge. Isis. 2013;104(1):63–85.

    Google Scholar 

  101. Worboys M. Practice and the science of medicine in the nineteenth century. Isis. 2011;102(1):109–15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  102. Dierig S. Engines for experiment: laboratory revolution and industrial labor in the nineteenth-century city. Osiris. 2003;18(1):116–34.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  103. Rheinberger HJ. Experimental systems: historiality, narration, and deconstruction. Sci Context. 1994;1(1):65–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  104. Barthes R. The rhetoric of the image. In: Heath S, editor. Image, music, text. New York: Hill and Wang; 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  105. Knorr-Cetina K. The manufacture of knowledge: An essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science. Oxford: Pergamon Press; 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  106. Knorr-Cetina K. Epistemic cultures: how the sciences make knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press; 1999. p. 49.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  107. Tarrow S. Cycles of collective action: between movements of madness and repertoires of contention. Soc Sci Hist. 1994;17(2–3):281–306.

    Google Scholar 

  108. Vidal F. Brainhood, anthropological figure of modernity. Hist Hum Sci. 2009;22(1):6–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  109. Rothschuh KE. Konzepte der Medizin in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Hippokrates; 1978. p. 419. author’s trans

    Google Scholar 

  110. De Chadarevian S. Designs for life: molecular biology after World War II. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  111. Kemp M, Cole S. Science and technology studies on trial: dilemmas of expertise. Soc Stud Sci. 2008;35(3):269–311.

    Google Scholar 

  112. Reuter-Lorenz P, Baynes K, Mangun GR, Phelps EA, editors. The cognitive neuroscience of mind: a tribute to Michael S Gazzaniga. Cambridge, MA: MIT-Press; 2010.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  113. Tarn H, editor. Brainwave: common senses. New York: US Exit Art Publications; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  114. Bathe C. Beauty in the MRI of the beholder. Imp Coll Sci Mag. 2006;1(1). isciencemag.co.uk.

  115. Kemp M. Science and culture. Nature. 2004;424(618):1.

    Google Scholar 

  116. Wilkinson DM. Science in culture: Hidden talent. Nature. 2007;447(148):1.

    Google Scholar 

  117. Sturken M, Cartwright L, editors. Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  118. Goodman N. Languages of art: an approach to a theory of symbols. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company; 1976.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  119. Bredekamp H. Ein Missverstaendnis als kuenstlerischer Dialog. Bemerkungen zur Antikenrezeption der Romantik. Kunstforum Int. 1991;111(1):98–107.

    Google Scholar 

  120. Schaper-Rinkel P. Gestaltsehen der Zukunft – Bildwelten der zukuenftigen Nanotechnologie und Nanomedizin in Wissenschaft und Politik. In: Stahnisch FW, Bauer H, editors. Bild und Gestalt. Wie formen Medienpraktiken das Wissen in Medizin und Humanwissenschaften? Hamburg: LIT Press; 2007. p. 245–63.

    Google Scholar 

  121. Wade N. Geometrical optical illusionists. Perception. 2014;43(8):846–68.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  122. Breidbach O, editor. Aesthetik und Naturwissenschaften. New York: Springer; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  123. Kemp M. Artists on science and scientists on art. Nature. 2005;434(7031):308–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  124. Kemp M. The science of art: optical themes in western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press; 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  125. Neuronale BO. Aesthetik. In: Clausberg K, editor. Neuronale Kunstgeschichte. Selbstdarstellung als Gestaltungsprinzi. Vienna: Springer; 1999. p. 34–60.

    Google Scholar 

  126. Nicklas P, Lindner O, editors. Adaptation and cultural appropriation. Berlin: de Gruyter; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  127. Beaulieu A. Images are not the (only) truth: Brain mapping, visual knowledge, and iconoclasm. Sci Tech Hum Val. 2002;27(1):53–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  128. Draisma D. Metaphors of memory. A history of ideas about the mind. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  129. Pickersgill M, Van Keulen I, editors. Sociological reflections on the neurosciences. Emerald: Bingley; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The original impulse to think about the intersections between brain research, aesthetic practices, and situated forms of art came from my esteemed colleague, vision science and physiology historian Guel A. Russell at Texas A & M University. With the help of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation-funded stay as a visiting scholar in interaction with “The Virtual Laboratory” at the Dept. III (“Experimental Systems and Spaces of Knowledge”) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, headed by Hans-Joerg Rheinberger, I could further the insights previously gained. I also thank all the reviewers of an earlier version of the manuscript, and specifically wish to express my gratitude to the editors of this volume, Blanca Spee, Matthew Pelowski, and Alby Richards for their remarkably rich suggestions and constructive comments which have fostered my modifications and revisions of this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alberta Medical Foundation/Hannah Professorship in the History of Medicine and Health Care, The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Frank W. Stahnisch

  2. Department of Community Health Sciences, Hotchkiss Brain Institute/O’Brien Institute for Public Health, The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Frank W. Stahnisch

  3. Department of History, Faculty of Arts, The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Frank W. Stahnisch

Authors
  1. Frank W. Stahnisch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frank W. Stahnisch .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Neurosciences, University of Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Alby Richard

  2. Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Matthew Pelowski

  3. Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Blanca T.M. Spee

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Stahnisch, F.W. (2023). Brain Research and Art?—A Short History of Neurological Research and Creative Expression. In: Richard, A., Pelowski, M., Spee, B.T. (eds) Art and Neurological Disorders. Current Clinical Neurology. Humana, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14724-1_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14724-1_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Humana, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-14723-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-14724-1

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation