Ischemia is a technical term for lack of oxygenated tissue due to an obstruction in blood flow. Two of the body's most vital organs most commonly fail due to ischemia. Myocardial infarctions, heart attacks, occur when a small blood clot interrupts and clogs an artery that supplies blood to heart tissue itself. Within minutes, heart tissue dies and cardiac arrest may occur. Most strokes occur in a similar manner. A blood clot may detach from an artery (commonly the carotid artery in the neck) and block blood flow to the brain, catastrophically starving fragile neurons of oxygen. Sometimes a blocked artery will swell up or even rupture, applying deadly pressure to surrounding neurons. The brain is the most essential organ, but its fragility is a terrifying reminder of our own mortality and tenuousness of consciousness.
I intend to do undergraduate, graduate, and post graduate research on strokes and resulting neurological deficit, focusing on pharmacological treatments to reduce neuron cell death and promote neuron compensation and growth after traumatic injury or ischemia. The brain, despite its fragility, has a phenomenal ability to change itself, to rewire its connections, to cope with otherwise devastating loss. This is called plasticity, and it is this constant evolution that makes the brain the greatest scientific frontier to ponder. Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary academic amalgam including biology, psychology, philosophy, medicine, and, yes, even art.
Written for an art class by a psychology student intending to go into medicine and research, I expect I'll provide more emphasis on empirics over aesthetics--but it's easy to overlook the aesthetics inherent in the empirics. I may come off as a left-brained and coldly analytical scientist, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I want to go into medicine for patient interaction and creative pharmacological problem-solving. This is a neuropsychological art therapy course, and I couldn't be more excited.
I think I can sum it up:
This blog will attempt to highlight the relationship between the visual arts and underlying neurological deficit.
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