Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

This week’s materials have not only enabled me to understand how the brain works, but they have also  allowed me to further comprehend how the brain controls the body, and tells it what to do. This weeks materials also allowed me to understand what neuroscience is about and how it seeks to understand how the nervous system functions under normal circumstances, but also how the nervous system functions in individuals suffering from neurological, neurodevelopment and psychiatric disorders.  The brain is a very complicated organ and it’s capable of doing things that are hard to be explained. However, with neuroscientists findings, most questions about human and how certain species behaves, can now be answered. Art in relationship with neuroscience helps us understand the function how human beings function in a physical perspective.

Figure 1: Nerves connected to the brain and different part of the  human head

When talking about neuroscience, one of the topics that mostly come up is the idea of conscious and unconscious state of mind. The awareness of having your own thoughts and seeing the world through your own perspective makes us conscious.  As explained in lecture II videos, Freud was one of the most influential people when it comes to the topic of conscious and unconscious state of mind.  In his theory, he alerts us that unconsciousness refers to the mental process of which an individual makes themselves unaware where as for consciousness it is vice versa. With the help of neuroscience and art we are able to understand how the brain works, which has led to the inventions of art therapy to help people deal with issues concerning the brain.

Figure 2: The right and Left side of the human brain

Art therapy is a use of art media, and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, help manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, and help reduce anxiety.  This shows the importance of how art and t help us fix and understanding the human brain showing that not everything can be fixed by that technology and medicine but by letting go of emotion and feeling issues through the use of art.

Figure 3: Art used to express feelings and emotions 

I have always been curious about the topic of consciousness and with the help of this week materials, I was able to help understand how the consciousness state of mind is related to art and even religion people might thing think don't have anything in common. With the combination of art and neuroscience, the human brain has the ability to explore itself to the maximum capacity and help us understand how the brain functions the way it does. 

This video talk about what its means to be conscious.

Citation

"What Is Art Therapy?" The Arts Therapies A Revolution in Healthcare (2005): 23-32. Web. 17 May 2015.

"What Is Consciousness?" YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.

"The Nerve Blog." The Nerve Blog RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.

"Consciousness, Illness, and Belief: Cognitive Neuroscience (Part One)." Consciousness. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.

"Art Therapy Makes Recovery Beautiful." - AllTreatment.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.