I’m a big fan of Greg Dunn’s gold leaf paintings of neurons and other natural structures, but I also love his scrolls. Scrolls similar to these are often hung in Japanese rooms for contemplation during traditional tea ceremonies. I’ve been lucky enough to participate in a couple of tea ceremonies and although I’m no expert, these scrolls seem to really capture some of the objectives of the ritual: appreciation of the harmony of nature and self cultivation.
Posts marked neurons
Images from Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century by Carl Schoonover
About the book:
Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century (Abrams, November 2010) follows the fascinating exploration of the brain through images. These beautiful black-and-white and vibrantly colored images, many resembling abstract art, are employed daily by scientists around the world, but most have never before been seen by the general public. From medieval sketches and 19th-century drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience to images produced using state-of-the-art techniques, readers are invited to witness the fantastic networks in the brain.
Each chapter in Portraits of the Mind addresses a different set of techniques for studying the brain, and each is introduced with an essay by a leading scientist in that field of study. Extended captions provide detailed explanations of each image as well as the major insights gained by scientists over the course of the past twenty years. The result is a peek at the mind’s innermost workings, helping readers to understand, and offering clues about what may lie ahead.
NeuroStar by Cliff Garten was commissioned for the Molecular Biotechnology Building at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Garten was inspired by the kind of research done in the building that would house it.
About the project:
NeuroStar imagines that the fine-grained scale of scientific research can become geologic in scale – so that faculty and students interact with the structures they research everyday as they move through the atrium. The sculptures intend to make the structures of neurosciences and bio-engineering physically palpable and to engage, activate, and compliment the architecture of the Sorenson Building.
Intuitively, the suite of suspended elements reflects the elegance of scientifically structured space, such as the connection and communication of neurons. The dynamism of the sculptures resides in the illumination of the disbursed Neurostars by LED lighting at dusk and night and by sunlight during the day. The full spectrum LED lights conform to the LEED certification for the building, and are programmed to slowly change through subtle hues of color.
Olfactory bulb image by Camillo Golgi, 1875
In 1875 the physician Camillo Golgi invented the reazione nera (black reaction) cell-staining technique, which allowed anatomists to view individual neurons in their entirety for the first time. Potassium dichromate and silver nitrate are added to preserved nervous tissue, and the neurons become visible as tiny silver chromate crystals form inside the cells.
Golgi used the technique to make detailed neuronal maps, such as this drawing of a dog’s olfactory bulb, made in the year he discovered the reaction. The technique became widely known as “Golgi’s method” and marks the beginning of modern neuroscience.
Click here to see other images from the book Portraits of the Mind by Carl Schoonover
This shiny and bright neuron ornament is available in the Anatomology Etsy store
Selected work by Andrew Carnie
About:
Carnie’s artistic practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists in different fields as an early stage in the development of his work. There are also other works that are self-generated and develop from pertinent ideas outside science. The work is often time-based in nature, involving 35 mm slide projection using dissolve systems or video projection onto complex screen configurations. In a darkened space, layered images appear and disappear on suspended screens; the developing display absorbs the viewer into an expanded sense of space and time through the slowly unfolding narratives that evolve before them.
A beautifully rendered 3D reconstruction of hippocampus neurons
Artist Amy Caron stands beneath a giant homunculus in her two-room interactive/ theatre art show about mirror neurons and the brain. Kristen Murphy/ Deseret News.
Beauty of Science: Neural Stem Cells Galore
Latin: Cellula Nervosa Precursoria
We all know at this point that Neurons are quite photogenic once you get it under the right lighting and scope, but what about their earlier years when they were just neural stem cells? Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to put together highlighting the beauty of the neural stem cell in swarms.
Neural stem cells (NSCs) are the self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate the main phenotypes of the nervous system.
In other words they’re the cells that form up from the start in your nervous system to turn into different types of neural related cells.
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