EAGER: Microetching of the Human Brain

“人脑微蚀刻”项目致力于创造有史以来最全面的人脑插图。 研究人员将利用反射微蚀刻，一个结合数学和光学的过程来创建一个艺术作品，根据观众的位置演变。 微蚀刻技术可以以令人难以置信的精细细节描绘非常复杂的大脑活动。 最后一件作品将是一个墙壁大小的艺术作品，每天在费城的富兰克林研究所，成千上万的不同人群都会体验到。此外，这个项目是一个教育机会，本科生通过直接参与创作的作品。由于这个项目跨越了许多科学和艺术学科，学生将有机会学习除了自己的领域，扩大他们的技能，并学习如何有效地沟通科学概念。这个项目是神经科学家，工程师，物理学家，和艺术家来解决这个问题，艺术是否可以用来传播科学的理解，以一种方式，给人一种发自内心的感觉，基本概念。人类的大脑非常复杂，很难清晰地描绘出来。 通过艺术传达大脑的复杂性可能会激发人们对大脑科学内容的兴趣，并激励新一代的神经科学家。为了制作一件能够以接近完整的复杂性描绘大脑的足够细节的美术作品，这件作品将通过一种称为反射微蚀刻的技术来完成。 微蚀刻是一种高分辨率的光刻工艺，其将周期性脊的微形貌图案化到表面中。 这些脊被设计成当相对于绘画以特定角度站立时朝向观看者反射点源照明。 类似于暗场显微镜，这可以产生令人难以置信的精细细节。 此外，光线的角度依赖性增加了一个额外的维度，可用于在观看者走过时传达时间、深度或运动。 这件作品将以神经元、神经胶质、脉管系统、白色和灰质为特色，并反映了大脑区域之间与视觉自我识别相关的神经过程相对应的动画电路动态。 这将为作品注入额外的意义，因为观众大脑中激活的回路将与艺术品中描绘的相同。

The project "Microetching of the Human Brain" endeavors to create the most comprehensive illustration of the human brain that has ever existed. Investigators will utilize reflective microetching, a process combining mathematics and optics to create an art piece that evolves based on the position of the viewer. Microetching allows the depiction of very complex brain activity at incredibly fine detail. The final piece will be a wall-sized piece of fine art experienced by a diverse population of thousands daily at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Additionally, this project is an educational opportunity for undergraduate students through direct involvement in the creation of the piece. As this project spans many scientific and artistic disciplines, students will be given an opportunity to learn about fields apart from their own, to broaden their skill set, and to learn how to communicate scientific concepts effectively.This project is a collaboration between neuroscientists, engineers, physicists, and artists to address the question of whether art can be used in the dissemination of scientific understanding to new audiences in a way that gives a visceral sense of the underlying concepts. The human brain is massively complex and challenging to portray clearly. Conveying a sense of its complexity through art may inspire an interest in the brain's scientific content and inspire a new generation of neuroscientists. To produce a piece of fine art capable of sufficient detail to depict the brain at near full complexity, the piece will be executed by a technique called reflective microetching. Microetching is a high-resolution lithographic process that patterns a microtopography of periodic ridges into the surface. These ridges are engineered to reflect a point-source illumination toward a viewer when standing at a specific angle relative to the painting. Similar to darkfield microscopy, this can yield incredibly fine detail. Additionally, the angular dependence of the light adds an extra dimension that can be used to convey time, depth, or motion as the viewer walks past. The piece will feature neurons, glia, vasculature, white and gray matter, and reflectively animated circuit dynamics between areas of the brain corresponding to neural processes involved in visual self-recognition. This will infuse the piece with additional meaning, as the circuits activated within viewers' brains will be the same that are depicted in the artwork.