Beauty and the Brain

Shining Mountains by Richard Edde

With painting, sculpture, poetry, and music, we humans express the most elevated concepts, passions, madness, pleasure, torments, and intimate thoughts of our souls. Neuroscientists have advanced our knowledge of the physiology of the brain thanks to the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques which allow visualization of brain activity while we carry out an action, think, or experience an emotion. Neuroaesthetic researchers are now beginning to unlock the secrets of how we appreciate beauty.

Standing before a work of art, each person has a different emotional experience due to genetic and cultural factors. The origin of these perceptions, however, are common to all of us. Many areas of the brain are activated in analogous ways in all human beings when they are before the same object. This common basis puts us on the same interpretive plane.

Semir Zeki of the University College London took ten participants and showed them 300 paintings and asked them to classify each as being either beautiful, ugly, or neutral. "Beautiful" paintings elicited increased activity in the orbito-frontal cortex, which is involved in emotion and reward. Interestingly, the "uglier" a painting, the greater the motor cortex activity, as if the brain was preparing to escape. In another study, there seem to be certain qualities that are found independent of genetics or culture. These are grids, zigzags, spirals, and curves. Such findings may suggest that, at least on one level, beauty might be universal.

The limbic system of our brains corresponds to the brains of our primitive mammalian ancestors. It is an area that allows us to distinguish between agreeable and non-agreeable, helping to formulate our emotions. Its activation or stimulation can be measured by the galvanic skin response. Pleasing pictures give a higher response than non-pleasing ones.

Our emotional responses are mediated by certain neurotransmitters such as dopamine, and serotonin which are released by these different parts of the brain. Hence, we feel joy, sadness, etc. when viewing, hearing, or reading a work of art.

This is a greatly simplified version of what is taking place in our heads and much research is needed in this new field of neuroaesthetics.

Just paint it!