Uncovering the structure of the brain is more than just about science

I came across and old issue of the Smithsonian magazine (March 2011) and found an article by Laura Helmuth entitled “Beauty of the Brain”. In it she reprints all kinds of pictures of the microstructure of the brain, which even if you disinterested in mind-brain science would still leave you stunned by their beauty. I suppose this is not a surprise since so much of nature is beautiful (rock formations, clouds, flowers, all sorts of life forms as well as pictures of the brain). The pictures she reproduces in her Smithsonian article are from a volume ‘Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21^st Century by Carl Sconover. In the book an the article we can see magnificent drawings dating to 1914 of the famous neuroanatomist Ramon y Cajal to a modern highly detwaid picture the hippocampus. There are pictures derived from magnetic resonance imaging of neural tracts and their connections, mouse neurons devoted to touch from a single whisker. Neurons can be made to glow and can be turned on by light. The illustrations can easily fill a gallery with exciting abstract art suitable for framing.