“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”-William Arthur Ward This quote was put up on a screen at our Chief Scientific Officer's retirement party back in 2017. While the party was very nice and well-intentioned on the surface, in reality it was a forced retirement.... Continue Reading →
Drumroll please – introducing “Wilting Mind”
“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”- Leonardo da Vinci I haven't heard this quote before. By some strange coincidence I accidentally came across it only a few weeks ago, as I was thinking of writing a... Continue Reading →
“Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds…”
Over the last couple of months, I have fallen off the face of the earth. Again. At least off of the blogosphere anyway. It has been a crazy couple of months for me, to say the least. Work has been stressful and I was in the process of being interviewed for a new job. Not... Continue Reading →
Our inner hurricanes
I have written earlier about whether or not it matters if the artist and the viewer put the same meaning into a piece of art. I would imagine that the chances that our points of view match are pretty low. Back then, I mostly thought about it from the point of personal taste, experiences and... Continue Reading →
I just want to feel this moment
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”- Lao Tzu I recently heard this quote at it really resonated with me. Despite being a neuroscientist, I had a pretty hazy understanding of... Continue Reading →
The Eye of the Beholder
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This phrase often gets thrown around when people compare their opinions of whether something (or someone) is attractive or not. Its most common interpretation is that the concept of beauty is subjective and different people may like different things. But can we put a different spin on... Continue Reading →
Looking for inspiration for a new mental health SciArt series
This blog post was originally published on Lifeology on 7/16/20. For the past few months, I have been dabbling in small projects here and there, but have kind of put an unintentional hold on my real SciArt. Of course, I created the sculpture for “The Brain Project” for a summer exhibition in Toronto. But otherwise... Continue Reading →
“Fragile Memory”, 2019
After I created "Fragile Memory" in the end of 2019, it quickly became one of my favorite pieces. Yet I forgot to post its story on the blog - how silly of me! "Fragile Memory" is based on an image of the hippocampus – the part of the brain that is responsible for forming new... Continue Reading →
Using SciArt to battle stress and find hope
This blog post was originally published on Lifeology on 5/10/20. Art has at least seven different functions, according to Alain de Botton and John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy”: 1) Remembering, 2) Hope, 3) Sorrow, 4) Rebalancing, 5) Self-Understanding, 6) Growth, and 7) Appreciation. Art helps us to remember the past, hope for something better and process our feelings. Last year, before hearing about... Continue Reading →