Let’s welcome Mental Health Month (May) by appreciating our beautiful brains

Self Reflect­ed was cre­at­ed over two years by a team that includ­ed neu­ro­sci­en­tists, engi­neers, physi­cists, and stu­dents, and is a hyper­de­tailed rep­re­sen­ta­tion of 500,000 neu­rons in a sagit­tal slice. Cred­it: Greg Dunn and Bri­an Edwards.

Between Thought and Expres­sion (Cere­brum):

Greg Dunn was on his way to a Ph.D. in neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia when he real­ized that bring­ing the brain’s beau­ty to life was a more suit­able role for him than lab work. He start­ed in ink, inspired by Chi­nese, Japan­ese, and Kore­an paint­ings and the sim­i­lar­i­ties he found in the micro­scop­ic world of neu­rons and the macro­scop­ic world of trees, flow­ers, and oth­er land­scape images.

Brain­bow Hip­pocam­pus, by Greg Dunn and Bri­an Edwards

From there, he branched out to microetch­ings, gold leaf, scrolls, and murals. Microetch­ing, which con­sists of cre­at­ing ani­mat­ed images by pre­cise­ly con­trol­ling light’s reflec­tion off of sur­faces, was invent­ed by Dunn and col­lab­o­ra­tor Bri­an Edwards, Ph.D., an applied physi­cist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. ”Microetch­ings are made through a com­plex process of hand draw­ing, com­put­er manip­u­la­tion, algo­rith­mic sim­u­la­tion, pho­tolith­o­g­ra­phy, gild­ing, and strate­gic light­ing design,” he explains. “No images are tak­en ver­ba­tim from a pho­to­graph or scan.”

Here is just a small sam­pling of work … Enjoy the show.

About Greg Dunn’s neuro art:

Check out his microetch­ings Here.

News in Context:

• Evo­lu­tion of Cajal’s draw­ings: Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century
• Explor­ing the human brain and how it responds to stress
• What do you see first, peo­ple or oth­er animals?
• Three quick brain teas­er games to test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive skills
• Tease your brain with the Her­mann Grid illusion