So... I played, and I won :) I somehow became the winner of the NeuroArt contest for December 2018, which is great
I am extremely happy to be one the winners of the NeuroArt contest for December 2018.
Making an image of
the brain always is a challenge. The idea behind the cover image is
to pay tribute to the amazing work initiated by Camillo Golgi back in
the late 19th century. His discovery of a staining
technique called black reaction changed the way one could visualize
brain structures. Recent studies have shown that the aesthetic of
images representing data visualization in neuroscience plays a
significant role in the way those image are understood.
In the last years,
computer technologies have improved dramatically, together with the
field of computational neuroscience. Thanks to advanced computer
graphics techniques, it is now possible to reconstruct realistic
shapes of neurons from a set of points and radii describing the
structure of the cell. Many of those datasets for single neurons can
be found on the web. Combining them together and placing them in
space makes it a simple way to imagine what regions of the brain
could look like if they were to be seen using Golgi’s technique.
In the near future,
it seems clear that realistic, physically based rendering of
in-silico data will become a necessary tool to understand how the
brain functions.
But if those new
tools are very promising, one should not forget the work of the
pioneers, and this is what this cover image is all about.
