Can brain scans ever tell us why we like art? by Philip Ball
Excerpt: “… to suggest that the human brain responds in a particular way to art risks creating criteria of right or wrong, either in the art itself or in individual reactions to it. Although it is a risk that most researchers are likely to recognize, experience suggests that scientists studying art find it hard to resist drawing up rules for critical judgements.”
“My feeling is that the social brain has many levels. If you don’t understand the foundational level, then you can do brain imaging until you’re blue in the face, but you still will not understand the process at a deep causal level.”
My comment: (note: I am banned from commenting to the Nature site due to past ‘inappropriate’ comments)
Clearly, Panksepp’s perspective on the social brain holds true in the context of adaptively evolved neuroaesthetics. Cause and effect is established at the molecular level of adaptive evolution of the brain and behavior. For example, in my model, food odors and pheromones epigenetically cause changes in levels of hormones that affect behavior via alterations in synaptogenesis, synaptolysis, and apoptosis. The neuroaesthetic appeal of food, conspecifics, or anything else typically attributed primarily to visual input or to auditory input is due to experience-dependent associations with epigenetic effects of sensory input on gene activation in hormone-secreting nerve cells of brain tissue.
Thus, our artistic understanding and experience cannot be wholly defined or explained via brain imagery or anything else that does not encompass the entirety of our sensory experience, which begins with chemical exchange via the placenta while we are still in the womb. Brain scans tell us nothing specific about individual neuroaesthetics; they tell us nothing about how our soul differs from any other.
James Vaughn Kohl was the first to accurately conceptualize human pheromones, and began presenting his findings to the scientific community in 1992. He continues to present to, and publish for, diverse scientific and lay audiences, while constantly monitoring the scientific presses for new information that is relevant to the development of his initial and ongoing conceptualization of human pheromones.
Recently, Kohl integrated scientific evidence that pinpoints the evolved neurophysiological mechanism that links olfactory/pheromonal input to genes in hormone-secreting cells of tissue in a specific area of the brain that is primarily involved in the sensory integration of olfactory and visual input, and in the development of human sexual preferences. His award-winning 2007 article/book chapter on multisensory integration: The Mind’s Eyes: Human pheromones, neuroscience, and male sexual preferences followed an award winning 2001 publication: Human pheromones: integrating neuroendocrinology and ethology, which was coauthored by disinguished researchers from Vienna. Rarely do researchers win awards in multiple disciplines, but Kohl’s 2001 award was for neuroscience, and his 2007 “Reiss Theory” award was for social science.
Kohl has worked as a medical laboratory scientist since 1974, and he has devoted more than twenty-five years to researching the relationship between the sense of smell and the development of human sexual preferences. Unlike many researchers who work with non-human subjects, medical laboratory scientists use the latest technology from many scientific disciplines to perform a variety of specialized diagnostic medical testing on people.
James V. Kohl is certified with:
* American Society for Clinical Pathology
* American Medical Technologists
James V. Kohl is a member of:
* Society for Neuroscience
* Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology
* Association for Chemoreception Sciences
* Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
* International Society for Human Ethology
* American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science
* Mensa, the international high IQ society
