Discussions of the how the brain works.
I was reading about a new book today, which I can’t wait to get. The author is Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist who wrote The Age of Insight, a wonderful book about art and the brain. His latest book is called Reductionism in Art in Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures. “Abstract art, says […]
One of the more fascinating bits in Eric Kandel’s* book, The Age of Insight was an alternate appreciation of the people who drew the cave drawings in the Chauvet caves, estimated to be about 30,000 years old. Art historians, including Ernst Gombrich noted that the realistic representation of horses in these caves implied that the humans who […]
I’ve been reading about art and the brain in The Age of Insight, by Nobel Prize winning neurobiologist Eric Kandel. He relates brain physiology and anatomy, and recent brain mapping studies to the way humans perceive and appreciate art on conscious and unconscious levels. The central sulcus in the human is the crevice that separates the frontal lobe […]
I’ve been reading The Age of Insight by Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel. In this fascinating book about art and neurobiology, he relates visual techniques of artists to the brain’s processing of visual information. Today I explore hard and soft edges in a schematic portrait of a human head. Kandel pointed out that the first […]
My readings of vision research ended years ago, with the works of Kuffler, Hubel and Wiesel about low and intermediate visual processing in the primary visual cortex. The current book I am reading, The Age of Insight, by Nobel Prize winning neurobiologist Eric Kandel, relates how artists instinctively use the physiology of this stage of vision (edge-detection, orientation […]
Here is another photograph from the archives. When I lived in Bay Ridge, I used to walk to Coney Island. I enjoyed walking along the Belt Parkway on the sidewalk in the park between the highway and the bay. I loved Coney Island in the off season.
I started with a smallish circle. I’m not sure when I decided to make it a toe. I may have toyed with the idea of making it a finger, but ultimately toes won the day. The last time I saw my grandson, we played the Piggy Game. I’m not sure how common that is, but […]
As we get closer to the publication of our introductory volume of neuroanatomy, my colleague and principle author, Andrew Lautin, MD and I will be sharing our work on this blog. Here is the preface to our Introduction to Neuroanatomy. Preface: Various strategies are available to study neuroanatomy. One strategy encourages the student to privilege […]
Change of pace, today. Many of my posts lately have been devoted to creativity and the visual arts. I am also working on an introductory volume of neuroanatomy with my colleague, Andrew Lautin, MD. Today’s post is about one of the early contributors to neuroanatomy. Marcello Malpighi (1628 – 1694), was a 17th century Italian […]
Recap: I have been concentrating recently, on trying to express my feelings through my watercolor studies. The closest I’ve come to attaining this goal was in a recent post (Adjusting). I had just experienced a major disappointment and was trying to feel better by painting a cheery picture. I was giving the paint-how-you-want-to-feel theory a try. […]
