boxed set of 15 brain art postcards- $50/ea
-5″ X 7″ (12.7cm X 18cm) notecards
-each postcard has a unique design on the front
-backs of postcards are suitable for writing
-features many of Dr. Dunn’s most popular designs
Great for gifts, thank you notes, get well soon cards, birthday cards, sympathy cards, cards to commemorate events, baptisms, name days, promotions, and winners of eating contests. Great for all types of brain scientists, notecard afficionados, teachers, twitter trolls, pilots, apple farmers, trillionaires, or anyone with a brain.
Set includes:
Wisteria Neuron, Spiny Stellate, Neural Migration, Cortical Columns (detail), Brain to Consciousness, Spinal Cord, Self Reflected Sunburst (detail), Neurogenesis II, Gold Cortex II, Cortex in Red and Gold, Maki-e Neurons, Cerebellar Folia, Gyrus, Basket and Pyramidals, and Brainbow Hippocampus.
Card Descriptions:
Wisteria Neuron- The neuron art piece Wisteria Neuron fuses two of my favorite forms in nature, pyramidal neurons and the flowering plant wisteria. It is meant to encourage us to consider that these branching forms occur throughout nature at many different scales as they are a common solution to a pressing problem- how to collect information from the environment. Neurons branch outward in order to collect synapses from adjacent neurons, whereas plants branch outward in order to collect sunlight to grow. The branching, fractal like solution to both of these problems looks similar.
To further make this point, this piece of brain themed art uses composition techniques and styling from Japanese and Chinese art to bring the world of neurons into the aesthetic of Asian art. Though invisible to our naked eye, the microscopic world contains profound beauty reminiscent in particular of the plants, trees, and flowers all around us.
The cascading “flowers” in this artwork represent the synaptic spikes or nodes that the neural dendrites collect information through. Their brilliant sparkle represents the synapses firing in response to incoming inputs from the rest of the brain. They are also reminiscent of the vertically oriented boutons or cartridges of inhibitory chandelier cells.
Spiny Stellate- Stellate neurons are found all over the brain, from the cortex to the cerebellum, the hippocampus to the basal ganglia. Spiny stellates, so named because of their spine studded dendrites that splay outward like stars, are famously found in the basal ganglia where they help integrate our senses, memories, and best laid plans to make our decisions.
Of all my pieces, Spiny Stellate is one of my personal favorites. It is inspired by the asymmetric, Zen-like qualities found in traditional Chinese and Japanese minimalist screen and scroll painting, particularly from the Rimpa school of Japanese art. It is meant to bridge the gap between the macroscopic world of branching plants and the microscopic world of the branching neurons. Nature organizes itself into fractals, common shapes designed to maximize efficiency of function. Golden spines pepper the dendritic arboring of the stellate neuron like the blossoms on a cherry tree, the seeds of synapses that will blossom into ever more elaborate circuitry.
Neural Migration- Neural Migration celebrates one of the most dazzling periods of brain development wherein radial glia (black cells) divide continuously to create new neurons (white cells). These new neurons climb the black dendritic stalks of their parent cells, eventually finding their final resting places within the layers of cerebral cortex. This process creates billions of new neurons and occurs over the period of only a few weeks during gestation. This print is a great choice for all you lovers of cortex and/or brain development out there.
Cortical Columns (detail)- Cortical Columns is an ode to one of the brain’s most iconic and beautiful regions, the cerebral cortex. Neurons are separated by vertical layer, and are grouped into loose columns that act as local processing units. The cortex is responsible for a huge variety of brain related functions, everything from eye tracking, logical comprehension, from movement, sensation, planning, vision, hearing, decision making, etc etc. Evolution has adapted the cortex’s unique structure to take on a staggering number of tasks, and there is no part of the human brain which greater differentiates us as a species.
Emergence of Mind- Emergence of Mind utilizes cosmic, nebula like imagery to depict the emergence of consciousness from the organic matter of the brain. The mind is suggested as a sky-like nebula from which our thoughts and ideas condense.
The ideas exploding forth from the brain acknowledge some of my personal favorite of humanity’s discoveries with an emphasis on the sciences and the arts. The discovery of galaxies, antibiotics, synthetic circuitry, DNA, and even several landmark ideas from neuroscience (a Ramon y Cajal drawing of purkinje neurons, the Nernst equation) radically changed the way that humanity understands ourselves and our place in the universe. Our minds emerge from our component biology which in turn gives rise to our ability to contemplate that very same biology.
Spinal Cord- Spinal Cord is a highly detailed rendering of a cross section of the human spinal cord. This image was made entirely from scratch, deeply informed by the neuroscientific literature and my background in neuroscience and designed to be an attractive piece of fine art as well as an accurate atlas of both anatomy and connectivity. It is the most ambitious project that I’ve undertaken since the creation of Self Reflected.
This artwork and associated images, GIFs, and video are designed to give the viewer a comprehensive understanding of the complex anatomical details of this region and how information travels through the cord. In particular, I wanted to emphasize the complexity of the transverse white matter regions and how signals travel into and out of these areas. Information travels through the afferent inputs in the dorsal ganglia, is processed in the butterfly shaped gray matter regions in the central cord, and through computations with interneurons and afferent/efferent signals from adjacent regions of the transverse white matter tracts leads to signal outputs through the ventral cord that execute movements.
The spinal cord is the information superhighway connecting our brains to our bodies, an indispensible organ and masterpiece of evolution.
Self Reflected Sunburst (detail)- Self Reflected was created to elucidate the nature of human consciousness, bridging the connection between the mysterious three pound macroscopic brain and the microscopic behavior of neurons. Self Reflected offers an unprecedented insight of the brain into itself, revealing through a technique called reflective microetching the enormous scope of beautiful and delicately balanced neural choreographies designed to reflect what is occurring in our own minds as we observe this work of art. Self Reflected was created to remind us that the most marvelous machine in the known universe is at the core of our being and is the root of our shared humanity.
Neurogenesis II- Neurogenesis II is a deep reflective gold leaf painting depicting the development of the cerebral cortex. Threadlike cells (12K and 22K gold) born from progenitors (blue) migrate upwards through the cortex to populate the thickening cortical layers during early development. This window of neurogenesis during early life creates billions of new neurons and is a dramatic example of critical periods in neurodevelopment.
Gold Cortex II- Gold Cortex II is one of my earliest and personal favorite paintings of cortex. The painting is inspired in equal parts by Japanese Edo period design, Golgi stains, Ramon y Cajal drawings, and forested landscapes. This is one of the first paintings where I figured out how to adhere blown ink to gold leaf properly, a breakthrough that led to the development of many other downstream techniques.
Cortex in Red and Gold- Cortex in Red and Gold is an ode to one of the brain’s most iconic and beautiful regions, the cerebral cortex. The cortex is responsible for a huge variety of brain related functions, everything from eye tracking, logical comprehension, movement, sensation, planning, vision, hearing, decision making, etc. Evolution has adapted the cortex’s unique structure to take on a staggering number of tasks, and there is no part of the human brain which greater differentiates us as a species.
Layers of gold leaf and transparently dyed stainless steel give this piece a bold palette and depth of color. Cortex in Red and Gold prominently features Layer V pyramidal neurons (gold neurons) as well as a host of smaller interneurons interlacing between and synapsing with the pyramidals’ apical dendrites.
The red and gold colors of this print are meant to lend an air of regality to the brain. Red and gold represent good fortune and prosperity in the Chinese culture from which this palette is inspired, a reminder of the preciousness of our own brains and minds.
Maki-e Neurons- Maki-e Neurons, a painting featuring neural and astrocytic forms, is inspired by the Japanese technique of maki-e wherein forms are carved and layered in lacquer and accented with gold and silver powders. I’ve always loved maki-e’s rich palette of deep browns and blacks laced with gold and semiprecious, iridescent stones, as well as its commonly featured asymmetry in composition. This piece features two large pyramidal neurons (22k gold) making connections with astrocytes interlaced amongst their dendrites to create synaptic connections. This print is a really good choice in particular for those of you out there that are fans of Asian-inspired art and the brain.
Cerebellar Folia- Cerebellar Folia depicts a sagittal section of the human cerebellum as rendered and imagined in the Self Reflected microetching. The cerebellum is the processing hub for movement and propriocepion, where your brain calculates where your body is in space. Its anatomy is particularly dense, complex, and beautiful, consisting of infolded laminar structures called folia consisting of 3 principal layers. The Purkinje cell layer (large cells in a single line following the convoluted folia of the cerebellum) contains neurons that make more connections than any other neural type in the brain, up to 100,000 synapses per cell! Purkinje neurons send their axons into the central dentate nucleus (center of the piece) where they are relayed to the pons and thalamus to execute movements.
The cerebellum also contains the granule cell layer, a densely packed layer containing around 40 billion cells that by itself makes up half of all of the neurons in your entire brain!
The color in this image represents a sort of “timing map” wherein neurons of a similar color are firing at the same time, demonstrating through our algorithmic simulations what the neural communication patterns of this beautiful region look like.
Gyrus- A gyrus is an outfolding of the brain’s cerebral cortex, the outer layering of the brain. This gyrus is from the parietal cortex, a region of the brain where visual and movement information are integrated. There are distinct layers of neurons in this region where information is passes horizontally and vertically to precisely process incoming information.
Basket and Pyramidals- Pyramidal neurons (right) are characterized by their large apical dendrites and are found in many different areas of the brain such as the cortex and hippocampus. These neurons are sometimes enwrapped by the axons of inhibitory basket cells, interneurons that control and refine the firing of pyramidal neurons through their inputs. This painting emphasizes the silhouettes of these neurons, utilizing negative space to emphasize their delicate branching patterns.
Brainbow Hippocampus- This piece is an ode to one of the most iconic regions in neuroanatomy, and one of the regions which best defines our individuality and humanity. Brainbow Hippocampus depicts the actively firing anatomy and complex circuitry of the hippocampus, the hub of learning, memory, and integration of experience in the brain. The reflective animations highlight the classic trisynaptic circuitry between the perforant path, granule cells of CA3, Schaffer collaterals to CA1, and then the output to the entorhinal cortex and subiculum.
