Week 7: Neurosci+Art

From my long bout with mental illness I've seen dozens of psychologists, psychiatrists and physicians. I've undergone many medication and procedures, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS), and come to a pretty rough understanding of the state of modern neuroscience.

TMS uses electromagnetic induction to pulse electricity directly in the brain for the treatment of mental disorders.

So it really puzzles me as to why phrenology is still talked about so significantly in a context outside the discussion of historical medicine. Phrenology differs from the current notion of brain regions (e.g. Broca's area, visual cortex) in that it assigns complex human concepts to regions of the head, not basic physiological or psychological functions. Then what of infants who do not yet understand spirituality? Dolphins have drastically different brain structures. What of them?

Phrenological diagram of the head, 1894. The phrase on the neck says in German, "Know thyself."

Yes, it looks pretty when drawn out. But note, for example, that the diagrams are of the head, not of the brain. It's a pseudoscience through and through, if it can even be called that. The problem is that there are people still in the 21st century who believe phrenology is a real science. To discuss phrenology without sufficiently driving home the point that it has been supplanted by modern neuropsychology and neuroscience opens the door to further misinformation.

Brainbow image of the dentate gyrus.

Rather, Brainbow really illustrates the neural network quite vividly. Every neuron is interconnected in complex ways that can't be simply divided up into phrenological regions. The bright-colored somata, the corresponding axons which tangle into a noisy mess, is in itself a metaphor for the state of neuroscience. The important stuff isn't the big bulges of color at the surface. It's the complex noise below it.




1. Brain stimulation therapies. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/brain-stimulation-therapies/brain-stimulation-therapies.shtml#part_152879. Accessed May 18, 2019.

2. Digital image. Transcranial Magnitac Stimulation (TMS) Service. Johns Hopkins University. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/brain_stimulation/tms/index.html. Accessed May 19, 2019.

3. Digital image. Diagram of phrenology. Bilz, Friedrich Eduard, 1894.

4. Phrenology.org. https://www.phrenology.org Accessed May 19, 2019.

5. Digital image. Livet et al. Transgenic strategies for combinatorial expression of fluorescent proteins in the nervous system. Nature, 01 Nov 2007.