Artists 'have structurally different brains'
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Artists 'have structurally different brains'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26925271
Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Artists have structurally different brains compared with non-artists, a study has found.
Participants' brain scans revealed that artists had increased neural matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery.
The research, published in NeuroImage, suggests that an artist's talent could be innate.
But training and environmental upbringing also play crucial roles in their ability, the authors report.
As in many areas of science, the exact interplay of nature and nurture remains unclear.
Lead author Rebecca Chamberlain from KU Leuven University, Belgium, said she was interested in finding out how artists saw the world differently.
"The people who are better at drawing really seem to have more developed structures in regions of the brain that control for fine motor performance and what we call procedural memory," she explained.
In their small study, researchers peered into the brains of 21 art students and compared them to 23 non-artists using a scanning method called voxel-based morphometry.
These detailed scans revealed that the artist group had significantly more grey matter in an area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe.
"This region is involved in a range of functions but potentially in things that could be linked to creativity, like visual imagery - being able to manipulate visual images in your brain, combine them and deconstruct them," Dr Chamberlain told the BBC's Inside Science programme.
continued
Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Artists have structurally different brains compared with non-artists, a study has found.
Participants' brain scans revealed that artists had increased neural matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery.
The research, published in NeuroImage, suggests that an artist's talent could be innate.
But training and environmental upbringing also play crucial roles in their ability, the authors report.
As in many areas of science, the exact interplay of nature and nurture remains unclear.
Lead author Rebecca Chamberlain from KU Leuven University, Belgium, said she was interested in finding out how artists saw the world differently.
"The people who are better at drawing really seem to have more developed structures in regions of the brain that control for fine motor performance and what we call procedural memory," she explained.
In their small study, researchers peered into the brains of 21 art students and compared them to 23 non-artists using a scanning method called voxel-based morphometry.
These detailed scans revealed that the artist group had significantly more grey matter in an area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe.
"This region is involved in a range of functions but potentially in things that could be linked to creativity, like visual imagery - being able to manipulate visual images in your brain, combine them and deconstruct them," Dr Chamberlain told the BBC's Inside Science programme.
continued
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
I suspect my precuneus is very, very small...
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Don't believe it.
Anyone can do art. It takes no grey matter whatsoever. Even chimps and elephants can do it.
In Canaletto's day, that might take some skills. Not today.
Anyone can do art. It takes no grey matter whatsoever. Even chimps and elephants can do it.
In Canaletto's day, that might take some skills. Not today.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
I disagree.mistermack wrote:Don't believe it.
Anyone can do art. It takes no grey matter whatsoever. Even chimps and elephants can do it.
In Canaletto's day, that might take some skills. Not today.
Anyone can do bad art.
Good art takes imagination, thought, planning, patience, knowledge and skill.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Problem is, there is no good art any more.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:I disagree.mistermack wrote:Don't believe it.
Anyone can do art. It takes no grey matter whatsoever. Even chimps and elephants can do it.
In Canaletto's day, that might take some skills. Not today.
Anyone can do bad art.
Good art takes imagination, thought, planning, patience, knowledge and skill.
And good riddance. It was over rated anyway.
And hello camera. Shit camera is far better than good art.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Photography is art.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.

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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
What you do changes who you are.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Cue recent discoveries in brain plasticity...Brian Peacock wrote:What you do changes who you are.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
Naaaaaaaaah.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Photography is art.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.
Just take lots, and pick the best ones.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
A good artist does the same with sketches and composition. It's light, a light show. Not the paint or the pixel. If you can give the light that right nudge then the viewer is in awe.mistermack wrote:Naaaaaaaaah.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Photography is art.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.
Just take lots, and pick the best ones.

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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
I don't think so.Scumple wrote:A good artist does the same with sketches and composition. It's light, a light show. Not the paint or the pixel. If you can give the light that right nudge then the viewer is in awe.mistermack wrote:Naaaaaaaaah.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Photography is art.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.
Just take lots, and pick the best ones.
Put the right name on it, and the viewer is in awe.
While there is a market for shit, there will be assholes to supply it.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
There's that side too. It's always gonna be the case where the good, the bad, the worst and the best hang out together. Sometimes the worst takes advantage of the best with some bad.mistermack wrote:I don't think so.Scumple wrote:A good artist does the same with sketches and composition. It's light, a light show. Not the paint or the pixel. If you can give the light that right nudge then the viewer is in awe.mistermack wrote:Naaaaaaaaah.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Photography is art.
Ok, you don't need a giant precuneus or whatever to operate a digital camera but it requires at least some of the qualities I mentioned to produce something other people might go out of their way to look at.
Just take lots, and pick the best ones.
Put the right name on it, and the viewer is in awe.

What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
So are these artists creating works of art that we're only able to see via brain scan, and we're only now able to see them with modern technology much the same way geoglyphs are only viewable from the air? 

People think "queue" is just "q" followed by 4 silent letters.
But those letters are not silent.
They're just waiting their turn.
But those letters are not silent.
They're just waiting their turn.
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Re: Artists 'have structurally different brains'
The shock art part of the brain is to be found in the madula oblengata, a medium sized knot at the back of the brain on top of the brainstem coincidently responsible for bowel movements.
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