McCabe Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

This week combines neuroscience and art and describes the way to further explore our brains and self. The "Neuroculture" article explains how diving deep into neuroscience reveals aspects of our individuality and what makes us, us. Overall, this week really sparked my interest because neuroscience helps to explain the things that people do everyday. 



Siddharth Ramakrishnan's presentation really influenced my learning this week. He went over a variety of concepts including how we imagine things in our head, using tarot cards in relation to neuroscience, our intuition, and many others. For the imagery part, we were asked to imagine many objects and rate how well we could picture it in our head. The results were fascinating; some participants could't picture anything in their heads while others could clearly visualize the object. We later learned that you could train yourself to become better at the visualization, and how this helps many athletes or professionals when imagining the task they are trying to succeed in. I remember my coach asking us to do this before important games.


Later on, Ramakrishnan showed his take on tarot cards and explained each card's neuroscience aspects. This clearly demonstrated the intersection between art and neuroscience because it explained how tarot cards or predictions and explanations of life could be displayed through imagery and a person's senses. I see a lot of people on TikTok now doing tarot card readings with millions of views and likes so it seems pretty relevant and shows how influential it can be on people.



Ramarkishnan's deeper dive into intuition was also very engrossing. He explained how intuition based decisions are derived from past experiences and gathering of facts. I thought this was cool because I thought that my intuition would lead me to correct answers or decisions randomly; however, it is not random at all and it is actually a decision that your subconscious constructs. I am now more interested in recognizing this and why I make some of the decisions that I do in hopes of becoming an "expert" at problem solving, and just learning more about how my own brain works. Altogether, this week's material, especially Ramarkishnan's lecture, will leave a long lasting impact on me and an extensive interest in learning more about the human brain. 



Resources

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. “Neuroculture.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 11, 2009, pp. 815–821., doi:10.1038/nrn2736.

Haas, Tao de. “The Importance Of Imagination.” About My Brain Institute Blog, blog.aboutmybrain.com/the-importance-of-imagination.

Hoffman, Matthew. “Brain (Human Anatomy): Picture, Function, Parts, Conditions, and More.” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/brain/picture-of-the-brain.

Images, Corbis via Getty. “A Beginner's Guide to Tarot Cards.” The Cut, 27 Apr. 2020, www.thecut.com/article/tarot-cards.html

Morrish, John. “Relying on Intuition - Should You Always Trust Your Gut Feelings?” Management Today, ManagementToday, 30 Aug. 2020, www.managementtoday.co.uk/relying-intuition-always-trust-gut-feelings/article/1155928.

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