The aesthetics of neuroscience—and the neuroscience of aesthetics
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Abstract
Samuel Johnson, the colourful 18th-century English lexicographer, asserted that ‘No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money’ (Boswell, 1934). Since unlikely to be applicable to the two books discussed here, Dr Johnson's quip leads one to seek alternative motives and ask what led the authors to write these books, and why and for whom each book was written. Dealing first with what inspired the authors, in the preface to his Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century , Dr Schoonover records how an informal group of American writers and scientists met to discuss ‘novel ways of communicating science to nonscientists’. The group, now called NeuWrite, addressed the ‘infamous methods section’, the section described as ‘somewhat of a downer’ which appears in almost every scientific paper. The aim was to combine pictures that illustrate the methodology inherent in producing neuroscientific data with an explanation of the scientific technique or principles behind each picture. But Schoonover aims for more: ‘For if the images are extraordinarily beautiful, I would argue that the principles underlying the techniques that created them are in some instances even more exquisite’, and Schoonover wants the reader to appreciate the beauty of the methodology as much as the images. The methods discussed range from techniques of microscopy to neurophysiology, and are arranged in chapters comprising 15–20 images, each chapter being prefaced by a short essay by an acknowledged expert in the field. The background to each picture is written by Schoonover and comprises not simply a caption but a succinct and interesting commentary. The chapter headings convey the scope: ‘Early history: from Galen to Golgi’; ‘The birth of modern neuroscience: Santiago Ramon y Cajal’; ‘After Cajal: from black and white to color’; ‘Breaking the diffraction barrier: from cells to molecules’; ‘Electricity …