MRI as a Revolutionary, Yet Insufficient, Portrait of Ourselves
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Though I settled with a course in cognitive psychology, I had initially hoped to get into the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) laboratory class this quarter, therefore I am utilizing this week's blog post as a supplement. Finding the respective professor's lectures online, I have been able to learn a thing or two about how magnetic resonance imaging works [1]. For our purposes, nearly all forms of neuroimaging are related to the art of photography: light reaches the target object, is manipulated by the objects' varying densities, captured by a plate in the imaging device, and processed for the clearest picture.
[2] In summary of how MRIs work, a magnetic field is created by reorienting a field of protons and measuring the energy that is emitted by the associated nuclei via a series of pulsating coils, before combining these into one resolute image of brain structure or function.
At broad, neuroimaging techniques are used in the medical field to examine anatomical structure and cognitive function. While I await the opportunity to be put under an MRI scanner, I have had experience with fNRIs, a lesser known device with the promise of detecting neuropsychiatric disorders [3].
In a study on campus, I wore this fNRI cap while I discussed hot-button political topics like affirmative action with people who agreed and disagreed with me. I regret to say that I did not snag a picture of my recorded brain waves.
Yet for those who have had the fortune to work with (or under) the MRI, we may understand them as another tool to assist in our self-conceptualization. "The appeal of brain imaging as a technique of self-portrait is powerful for an audience outside the medical field, because information
is conveyed through images—for example, through MRI scans," says Silvia Casini, a Film and Visual Culture lecturer in Scotland [4]. The first artist to gain popular attention with MRI scanning was Justine Cooper who used seventy-six images of her own body to create a twenty-four footlong, genderless, and universal body for digital display [5].
[6] This T2 Weighted Image (which tends to give us a functional view of the brain/body) is a subset of the Visible Human Male from the Visible Human Project, now a public-domain library of cross-sectional images of the human body. These images have been applied to a wide range of educational, diagnostic, virtual reality, artistic, mathematical, and industrial uses.
At UCLA, we have bidirectional collaborations between artists and neuroscientists. Refik Anadol, whose work is currently displayed on campus, created "Melting Memories" [7] to honor his grandfather's bout with Alzheimer's disease, and "Sense of Space" [8] to display MRI and fMRI images of a healthy brain throughout its lifespan. In turn, those at the UCLA Center for Cognitive Neuroscience are working on a study where subjects will view Anadol's artwork and have various markers of health measured [9].
[9] In collaboration with the UCLA Human Connectome Project, Refik Anadol's "Sense of Space" allows for a dynamic peek into the mollecular architecture of the human brain.
Yet the same artists who have introduced MRI-based artwork to popular culture have also raised concern about the distinction between representative portraiture and literal interpretation [10]. Brain scanning techniques are 2-dimensional depictions of the brain and its activity which cannot capture the fullness of human thought, wellbeing, and conscious experience; leading neuroscientists would argue that we need assistance from culture and the arts [11].
[12] Mariko Mori's Wave UFO (1999-2002) defies the reductionist view of neuroessentialism by suggesting that humas cannot be isolated from their environmental surroundings or reduced to their neural activity. With EEG electrodes strapped to their head, participants would enter into a multisensory experience of their own live brain activity displayed on the Vision Dome above.
[2] Monti, Martin. “Learn FMRI (w01) 02 Studying the brain with MR (UCLA Monti PSYCH265).” YouTube, YouTube, 29 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwMl5KjGr2o&list=PLGeuU8rOLt8wYNRAymGZkd3N46RroyX6C.
[3] Ehlis, Ann-Christine et al. “Application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in psychiatry.” NeuroImage vol. 85 Pt 1 (2014): 478-88. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.03.067
[4] Casini, Silvia. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as mirror and portrait: MRI configurations between science and the arts.” Configurations vol. 19,1 (2011): 73-99. doi:10.1353/con.2011.0008
[5] Cooper, Justine. “Rapt - Justine Cooper - Qagoma Learning.” Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, 1998, https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/rapt/.
[6] “The Visible Human Project - MRI Scans.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 2 Oct. 2014, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/mri.html.
[8] Anadol, Refik. “Sense of Space : Molecular Architecture.” Refik Anadol Studio, Https://Common.studio/, 30 Apr. 2021, http://refikanadolstudio.com/projects/sense-of-space/.[9] Wolf, Jessica. “UCLA Presents Unique Multimedia Art Installation April 19–24 in Campus Sculpture Garden.” UCLA, UCLA Newsroom, 19 Apr. 2022, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/refik-anadol-moment-of-reflection.
[10] Casini, Silvia. “The Aesthetics of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): From the Scientific Laboratory to an Artwork.” Contemporary Aesthetics, 27 Jan. 2010, https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=569#FN19.
[11] Mondloch, Kate. “Wave of the Future?: Reconsidering the Neuroscientific Turn in Art History.” JSTOR, The MIT Press, 2016, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43834319.
[12] Dahl, Jake, and Mariko Mori. “Wave UFO.” 21st Century Digital Art: A Collaborative Survey of Digital Art Made Since 2000, 21st Century Digital Art, 27 May 2016, http://www.digiart21.org/art/wave-ufo.
Both science and art are cumulative processes of knowledge production, with scientists attempting to explain the physical universe and artists attempting to display the cultural world [1]. "Everything we know and do is rendered through shared and transforming intelligence," states the author. In this week's lecture, we observed the scope of progress become increasingly narrow over time as information-processing capabilities have grown exponentially efficient. In supplement, I unapolegetically drew from my favorite YouTube channel, "Crash Course". In video 6 of the series titled Big History , I was first drawn to the notion of collective learning, the ability of a species to transfer knowledge across generations [2]. In the innovative, interdependent social world that we reside, knowledge is power, power is money, and capital has driven every industrial revolution thus far, with post-industrial societies appearing to replace human labor with computing power [3]. ...
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