NEA Grant for Using MRI To Understand Art’s Impact on the Brain

Two professors at Auburn University were recently awarded a $90,000 Research: Art Works Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to study how drawing influences brain plasticity. The basis of this 11-month project will feature 80 MRI scans and an analysis of how art manipulates neural activity.

Starting in August, art professor Barb Bondy and psychology professor Jeff Katz, PhD, will have a group of 40 students undergo MRI scans. Half of the group will then start a semester long-art class and the other 20 students who have no artistic training, will not take an art course. At the end of the semester, all participants will do another MRI scan. Both scanning procedures include questionnaires on art skills such as “light, line and value.” For example, participants might be asked to observe a still life and point out the number of light sources in the painting or photo. The objective of the scans and the corresponding questions is to determine a possible link between brain activity and art education.

“Jeff and I talked and thought if we can detect neuroplasticity then the novel aspect of this research could also address the application of that possibly as an intervention for other purposes, like cognitive impairment, even depression or other situations that perhaps neuroplasticity could serve as an intervention,” said Bondy for Oanow.com. “So drawing classes could be beneficial to art and non-art majors. So we’re in the ground work to see if this is a possibility.”

The researchers will also be studying the participants’ resting state to better understand how the brain oscillates. According to previous studies, practicing artists have different resting state patterns than non-artists, resulting in “unique neural networks.”