Prognostic potential of reading art in brain damage and the possible contribution of non-invasive brain stimulation. Comment on "Can we really 'read' art to see the changing brain? A review and empirical assessment of clinical case reports and published artworks for systematic evidence of quality and style changes linked to damage or neurodegenerative disease" by Matthew Pelowski, Blanca T.M. Spee, et al.
Abstract
As extensively detailed by Pelowski, Spee, and colleagues ([13]; hereby referred to as "authors"), the exploration of art-making and the associated aesthetic experience has been touched on previously by a wide breadth of literature mostly detailing case reports of persons suffering from neurodegenerative disease or stroke. Marked as one of the most prominent results of the paper, the diverse subjective and lack of objective criteria in artwork assessment has shown to affect the interpretation and evaluation of art-making before and after the onset of brain damage; of note, the strength of such effect was overestimated with 70.8% of authors' assessments matching those found in the authors' systematic-based assessment. Critically, specific changes can be assessed within stroke and each neurodegenerative disorder, such as the increased abstraction and overall creativity given to artwork following the onset of frontal temporal/-lobar dementia (FTD/FTLD), or the reduced overall creativity given to artwork following the onset of Parkinson's disease (PD). The results of the authors' art assessments and the proposed ability to read into these populations' artwork to understand the causal effects of brain damage on art-making have excellent implications on future research investigating art-making and the associated aesthetic experience. We express genuine appreciation for this outstanding review and its strengths, and in respect to our short commentary, we address a few minor points that may deserve more light in order to pragmatically move forward with the practices as stressed by the authors.
- Publication:
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Physics of Life Reviews
- Pub Date:
- July 2023
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.plrev.2023.02.004
- Bibcode:
- 2023PhLRv..45...25S