Build a Better Brain Through Art

AUDIO – THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON ART –

April 3, 2023 – “Creativity is making new connections, new synapses,” says Ivy Ross, vice president of hardware design at Google and co-author of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.

Despite growing evidence that arts can improve performance in many areas, activities like music and drawing have fallen out of favor in education and our culture.”Children who engage in the arts are better learners,” Ross says. “Students with access to art education are five times less likely to drop out of school and four times more likely to be recognized with high achievement.”

In 2010, scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that professional musicians had greater plasticity than nonmusicians in the hippocampus, an area involved in storing and retrieving information. Music, dance, drawing, storytelling — all of these have been a part of human cultures for tens of thousands of years. As a result, “we’re really wired for art,” Susan Magsamen, director of the International Arts and Mind Lab says.

“The arts provide children with the kind of brain development that’s really important for building strong neural pathways,” Magsamen says, including pathways involved in focus, memory and creativity. And when we make art, we increase the brain’s plasticity — its ability to adapt in response to new experiences.”We optimize for productivity and push the arts aside,” she says. “We thought we’d be happy. And the truth is, we’re not.”