Brain and Art

Description:

This book analyzes and discusses in detail art therapy, a specific tool used to sustain health in affective developments, rehabilitation, motor skills and cognitive functions. Art therapy is based on the assumption that the process of making art (music, dance, painting) sparks emotions and enhances brain activity. Art therapy is used to encourage personal growth, facilitate particular brain areas or activity patterns, and improve neural connectivity. Treating neurological diseases using artistic strategies offers us a unique option for engaging brain structural networks that enhance the brain’s ability to form new connections. Based on brain plasticity, art therapy has the potential to increase our repertoire for treating neurological diseases. Neural substrates are the basis of complex emotions relative to art experiences, and involve a widespread activation of cognitive and motor systems. Accordingly, art therapy has the capacity to modulate behavior, cognition, attention and movement. In this context, art therapy can offer effective tools for improving general well-being, quality of life and motivation in connection with neurological diseases. The book discusses art therapy as a potential group of techniques for the treatment of neurological disturbances and approaches the relationship between humanistic disciplines and neurology from a holistic perspective, reflecting the growing interest in this interconnection.

Table of Contents:

1. The Art of Being a Doctor

2. Is There an Artistic Treatment for Neurological Diseases? The Paradigm of Music Therapy

3. Beauty and the Brain: Neuroaesthetics

4. Neurodegenerative Diseases and Changes in Artistic Expression

5. Painting in Neurology

6. Art and Neurologists

7. Music and Mirror Neuron System

8. Opera and Neuroscience: A Historical Approach and Its Relevance Today

9. Cinema and Neurology: From History to Therapy

10. A Neuroscience of Dance: Potential for Therapeusis in Neurology

11. Literature and Neurosciences: The temps perdu, Between Hermann von Helmholtz and Marcel Proust

12. Wax Anatomical Models and Neuroscience: From Artistic Italian Creation to Therapeutic Approach

13. The Significance of Art Therapy