As human beings, by simple virtue of existing in the world, we are in a constant state of aesthetic appraisal. We engage reality in a dialogue through the use of our senses, perceiving external stimuli and assigning values to each input (whether consciously or not) through a reward mechanism. Of particular interest is the way in which this mechanism is employed in the appreciation of visual art. Through the use of neuroimaging technology scientists are beginning to understand how the brain encounters and creates art. This study, known as neuroesthetics, sheds light on why art has been so prevalent and valued over the course of human history and raises questions concerning the nature and future of art.

"Booming, buzzing confusion":
Its role in biological, cultural, and individual evolution

Some reflections on The Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories, Spring, 2009 (in progress).  With thanks for everyone's participation in story evolution ...

The long, wide perspective

Desmond Hubbard

Tuesday, April 14th

NeuroBiology and Behavior

Moral Emotions v. Rationality

Like most typical girls, I grew up watching Disney movies, which consisted primarily of princesses finding their true loves and living happily ever after. I watched these movies and played “house” while thinking to myself that one day I would find my own prince charming, and live happily ever after just like the princesses I grew up admiring. In addition to the Disney movies that initiated my thoughts of finding true love, learning about the concept of “soul mates” added to my belief that I was destined to be with someone. Plato presents a theory of soul mates in his philosophical dialogue, Symposium. He describes humans as originally having four arms and

“Written on the [brain] is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille.” (1)

In this paper, I would like to explore the origin of the writing on the human brain from a neurobiological perspective.  Neurobiology can provide us with information about the material nature of the brain.  After developing an understanding of the brain, I would like to consider the implications for learning and teaching. 

Jonah Lehrer, in Proust was a Neuroscientist, suggests that Marcel Proust, in his
writing, predicted the, “instability and inaccuracy of [long-term] memory…” [1]. Before
the dawn of the 21st century, neuroscience suggested that memory, valuable pieces of
information, were archived in a structure in the brain, such as the lateral and basal nuclei
of the amygdala.  In 2000, research on rats with fear conditioning and a protein inhibitor
showed that the act of remembrance (reactivation) in fact changed the molecular
underpinnings of the memory by making the memory ‘labile’ once again [2].  Therefore,
new protein synthesis at the synapse was needed to ‘reconsolidate’ the information to