Art and Science and Brain Scans

Poster image from 'The Effect' by Lucy Prebble

Last Friday, I volunteered for a study with MRC Clinical Sciences Centre investigating whether long-term stress has an affect on brain functioning by altering levels of dopamine in the brain.  To do this, they are looking at contributing factors such as where people live, what their childhood was like, what their occupation is, and conducting psychological and biological tests to explore the theory.  Eventually, Michael Bloomfield will pool all of this information together and draw a conclusion based on comparing the evidence drawn from individuals across the UK.  Taking part in the study was endlessly interesting, and I don’t think I have ever felt so interesting in my life, being scrutinised between multiple psychological tests, saliva swabs, blood pressure checks, a PET scan and an MRI scan.  
 

I gave all of these things without a second thought, and I don’t know how many times I said thankyou.  But in the world of science, we don’t tend to question the validity of a scientist’s wish to stick a cannula up our arm or have a sample of urine in a pot.  I knew the whys and wherefores of the study, and knew that everything I could provide, as honestly as I could, was contributing to a wider understanding of the strange things that happen in the human mind – and that was enough for me.

But while I was lying in the MRI scanner, drifting in and out of sleep for 90 minutes and intermittently listening to Chopin on the stereo, I started to consider the relationship between science and art.  Is the process of painting, of writing a play or composing a song not exactly the same process?  We only question the worth of either discipline when we start to talk about money, at which point the rebuttal is the same: its worth is enormous, it contributes to our understanding of ourselves.

The levels of dopamine in the brain - in my brain

Okay, alright.  So a piece of theatre or an art exhibition may not have the same groundbreaking effect as the potential discovery of the Higgs boson particle.  Neither does the redevelopment of the Large Hadron Collider compare with the building work at the National Theatre.  But lying in that MRI scanner with dye in my bloodstream, I couldn’t help but dwell on the similarities: I had put unreserved faith in the doctors looking after me, I was guided from beginning to end, with my emotions and comprehension checked at every crucial opportunity (science is much better at this than theatre - granted) and at the end of it all, a man will look at the results of the day’s work and seek to answer the ever-prevalent question: “why”?

What we ask that question in reference to is irrelevant, because it is simply the act of asking it that is intrinsic to our values as human beings with conscious minds.  It is because of this question that both art and science exist: why choreographers and playwrights work with scientists, and why Leonardo DaVinci hangs in a dichotomy between artist and scientist.  

Sufficed to say, drawing this parallel is absolutely nothing new.  But I was brought to thinking about it so furtively while having my brain scanned because it leadme to also ponder the question: “how?”  An artist consistently has to justify their work, as does a scientist, and if the justification doesn’t fit, then something has to change.  But once all of those justifications are in place, we look at how something happens – in the brain, in the universe, in an exchange between characters - and can finally begin to understand the larger, more domineering “why”.

But, as we are seeing with the Higgs particle, answering one question is only the catalyst for asking hundreds of more questions.  Matt Morrison, a playwright and lecturer at the University of Westminster, once said to me that what is really terrifying to ask is whether every play is actually about the same thing: what it is to be human.  Would scientists agree that the same can be said for science?  

The conversation never stops and quite frankly, I’m glad that it never will.