Ah... busted! If people did read threads and post in their entirety, maybe the same questions would not constantly come up???

I'm busted!:biggrin:

What questions? Oooops, guess I should have read the posts before this. Was that a Freudian slip? Nah, the floor looks clean, couldn't have slipped on it.

Am I busted too?

Roerich

The book I was reading is called Whole Brain Thinking. Working from Both sides of the Brain to Achieve Peak Job Performance (phew!) by Jacquelyn Wonder and Priscilla Donovan. William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York 1984. It's a little out of date (over twenty years old), but it's an interesting read anyway. I got this book from a book fair. Fill a bag for 15 bucks. I love to read and I got to the point that this was the only unread book in the house. (I'm only slightly addicted...) As it turns out, it's pretty good, but I'm only on chapter eight out of fifteen.

Hi Nam,

Thank you for posting the title of the book you are reading. Is there a list of right and left brain functions such as the one below? I have been reading Dr. Paul Valent's work, which I downloaded from his website. The following is from his 7 page PDF file titled, " RIGHT AND LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONING":

"We know that the brain is divided into two large hemispheres,
connected across the centre by relatively few interconnective neurons.
Contrary to our intuitive subjective sense and even desires, these two
lobes are responsible for us living simultaneously in two separate complex
mental worlds. These worlds live, literally, side by side, but perceive,
process, and express information in very different ways. Further, these
separate mental worlds may know little about each other.
For instance, because the right brain processes events and survival
contexts twice as fast as the left brain, people may become aware belatedly
in their left brains of actions which are felt to have been done automatically
under right brain direction. Similarly, the left brain may be amazed at
dreams, intuitions, and symptoms generated in the right brain."

Left Hemisphere Functions:

Responsible for verbal expression and language
Recognizes words and numbers
Sense of linear time ( past, present, and future)
Deals with inputs one at a time
Does logical and analytical thinking
Crucial side for engineers
The seat of reason

Right Hemisphere Functions

Responsible for non-verbal, facial, and body language
Recognizes faces, places, music
No sense of time line present (past, present, future, are one)
Integrates many inputs at once
Does intuitive and holistic thinking
Crucial side for artists, musicians
The seat of passion

Based on Sousa, (1995, pg. 88)

Roerich

Okay, so back to my original question then, which I don't think was answered, or if it was, I didn't understand the answer. I'm an artist, and I have reduced hippocampal volume in the right side of my brain (18%). Since the trauma, I haven't been able to draw the same kind of images as I used to. Is this partially why, because art is controlled on the right side of the brain?

I'd like to know the answer to that also, since I'm also an artist.

Hi Batgirl, Nam,

From About.com:

"Right Brain: The right brain controls the artistic abilities of a person. A person with a predominant right brain over the left brain will be more artistic, creative and spontaneous."

"In our schools today, more emphasis is given to Left Brain Activities like math, logic, spelling, and related activities as compared to right brain activities. We can however, influence development of both sides of the brain equally by introducing the child to more right brain activities alongside with the more traditional logic, math and spelling activities. Right Brain Activities involve a lot of visuals, patterns, fluidity, role playing and imagination."

Source: Right Brain vs Left Brain by Dipika Mirpuri

Is 'unable to draw' a voluntary choice based on feelings or a conscious decision not to draw? Is artistic ability affected, that is the quality or imagination required to produce the art not the same as before?

"Children tend to draw the part of the trauma they don't understand, the part they're 'stuck' on. Like adults, sometimes what they're saying is not what they're feeling. When they draw, they put it all out on paper," says Suzanne Silverstein, president and co-founder of the Psychological Trauma Center at Cedars-Sinai.

Thanks for your answer. Actually I am still able to draw as well as before, just the images I draw are all really violent now. I used to draw nice things. I realize that's to do with my trauma, but I was wondering if the fact that I have reduced right hippocampal volume is contributing to the violent images I draw over and over again. That's my question actually.

Maybe there is no answer... if there isn't then just ignore me.

You raise an excellent question of which I have not found an answer to, but the following article intrigues me, as brain damage actually improved artistic ability. I do not know if hippocampal volume affects artistic themes or amount of traumatic images drawn. Emotion is hard wired in the right brain and develops first, the right brain processing at double the left brain's speed. This occurs before the left brain is even aware of the cognitive meaning of the object or situation presented for logical analysis.

Why brain damage may spark artistic ability

Last Updated: 2006-10-19 13:00:47 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with a certain type of brain damage are known to develop new artistic skills during their illness. A "before and after" look at one such patient's artwork offers some clues as to what is going on when this occurs.

The condition known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) occurs when sections of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain deteriorate, leading to dementia. There have been reports of previously inartistic people becoming talented visual artists after developing FTLD. But it is not clear whether the brain atrophy is releasing dormant talent, or the disease itself has somehow triggered the artistic expression.

To investigate, Dr. Valeria Drago of the University of Florida at Gainesville and others studied the art of a woman who had been an artist before developing FTLD. As the woman's condition worsened, they found, her artistic technique improved, but the emotional power of her work decreased. "We can really follow how the paintings have been changed following the disease," Drago told Reuters Health in an interview.

Drago and her team gathered 40 paintings by the woman, including several from the period before she developed symptoms, some from when her symptoms were beginning, and some from when the woman was "fully symptomatic."

The researchers then gave 18 men and women training on how to evaluate six different artistic qualities, and asked them to rate all the paintings based on these qualities.

Ratings for the paintings' artistic skill rose as the woman's disease progressed, but ratings on the paintings' "evocative impact" and "closure" fell. Evocative impact is the ability of a work of art to elicit an emotional reaction, while closure is the sense that a painting is finished and complete.

Drago and her team note that FTLD leaves the parts of the brain at work in drawing, painting and other skills relatively intact. The part of the brain the disease does affect may typically inhibit this region of the brain, so when it is damaged artistic talents have freer rein, they suggest.

The researchers also point out that FTLD patients may have damage to the limbic system, a network within the brain essential for mediating emotions. This damage could in turn impair an artist's ability to paint emotionally affecting paintings, or to portray emotion visually.

Drago said she and her team are continuing to study creativity and the brain, and are currently looking at how normal aging may change creativity.

SOURCE: Neurology, October 2006.