Brain Art Competition 2020

Vote for your favorite (closed) 

Winners announcement at OHBM: 

July 3, 22:30 - New York / 03:50 +1d - London / 10:50 +1d - Hong Kong  

Layer fMRI (1)

-- Laurentius Huber

Brain sometimes feels like puddle plants  (3)

-- Bob Cox


Helping Hands (2)

-- Lucina Uddin

Curious Little Minds (4)

I am submitting this creation of my daughter Eveleen, who is eight years old from India studying in 4rt Standard. She is fascinated by the world of Neuro Science. Following her aunt profession, she also has dreams to unlock the secrets of the human mind in future.

--Eveleen Walia, Kendriya Vidyalaya II, Jalahalli, Bangalore, India


Crazy Life, Crazy Brain (5)

We are living in crazy times. COVID-19 has impacted our daily lives and we are all stuck inside and breathing through masks. The "I can't breathe" slogan from George Floyd speaks to another virus of racism. Our brains have to process all this craziness, but our brains are amazing. I hope we all will work together to clear the air of viruses and be able to breathe once again.

-- Vince Calhoun submitted on behalf of Anaiah Calhoun, 12 yo


The V Tree (7)

Cotton rope on canvas

-- Matthew Budde, Medical College of Wisconsin


Mosaic Brain (9)

Psychiatric disorders show substantial comorbidity between diagnoses and marked heterogeneity within diagnoses, which contributes to the apparent nonspecificity of neural mechanisms associated with psychopathology. This art depicts mosaic tiles of disparate colors and shapes progressively merging into a highly stylized rendering of functional connectivity map in the brain (from the Human Connectome Project). It highlights the tension between heterogeneity of symptoms and convergence of neural mechanisms underlying psychopathology.

-- Cedric Huchuan Xia, University of Pennsylvania


BrainGirafe (10)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin



BrainPebble (12)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin


BrainDream (14)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin


The mind's butterfly (16)

an éclaté of sub-cortical structures 

-- Pilou Bazin, Universiteit van Amsterdam

Tunnel Visions (18)

Close-up views of new ultra-high-field 7-Tesla MRI magnet at the MGH Martinos Center in Boston, MA, captured before the magnetic field was active.

-- Michael Datko, MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging


The Golden Arbor (6)

Pyramidal neurons form the majority of neurons in the mammalian cortex. They were first characterized by Santiago Ramon y Cajal in the 19th century. Acrylic paint on canvas

-- Lizbeth Ayoub, University of Toronto


Wired (8)

Reconstruction of whole-brain white matter from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data in preparation for structural connectome analyses

-- Lena Oestreich, The Unversity of Queensland


Agony of psychosis (11)

This is a collaborative work of an illustrative artist (Rebecca Ra) and a neuroscientist (Peter Kochunov) to symbolize the the brain-gut dysregulation in severe mental illness. A person’s gut is shown as the trunk of the camphor oil tree and the head wears the crow of camphor oil leafs. Consumption of camphor oil leafs causes psychosis and hallucinations in humans. Here, it is symbolic for neuroinflamation that originates in the gut due to dysregulation of brain-gut axis in severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. The brain is shown in flames as the symbolism for positive symptoms including delusions and hallucination. The base is shown frozen to symbolize the negative symptoms such as anhedonia and lack of energy. 

-- Peter Kochunov, University of Maryland


WoollyBrain (13)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin


BrainEyes (15)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin


Order in the Chaos (17)

-- Mitzi Gabriela Márquez, Artista Indepediente

Big BigBrain explosions (19)

Cortical layers of BigBrain exploding to create a visual spectacle.

--Omer Faruk Gulban, Maastricht University


BrainEquation (20)

-- Jean-Francois Mangin, Neurospin


The great connectome off Kanagawa (21)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, the Japanese great wave of Kanagawa washes over the corticospinal fibers.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


Brain blood vessels on wooden trophy mount (22)

3D printed brain blood vessels

-- Dave Farnham

Güell Salaminder (23)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, we honor our home of Barcelona and its artistic Icon Gaudi. Fitting, as nature was always his inspiration.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


Starry Cortex (25)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, we Van Goh's iconic stokes merge seamlessly, with gyral patterns.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


I forgot my umbrella (27)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, Afremovs particular style goes full sagittal.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


The fragmented brain (29)

The fragmented brain: an illustration depicting the damaging side effects of radiation therapy (red = high dose,  purple = low dose) on the structural integrity of the brain.

-- Szabolcs David, UMC Utrecht


Expressive Predictionism (31)

-- Rachel Nirmala Pläschke, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

Empathetic person (33)

TECHNIQUE: Multicolor woolen yarn pressed into bee wax and wooden board.  FORMAT: 60 x 90 cm. YEAR: 2019 DECRIPTION: Neurosciences attempt to explain how brain function enables consciousness and empathy. However, they do not provide a concept of "person" that favors an integrative interpretation of their findings. “Empathic Person” uses the artistic expression to show a neuroscientific allegory of the human person according to the scholastic philosopher John Duns Scotus (1266-1308). The work emulates an artisanal technique used by the Huichol shamans and visionaries that inhabit northern Mexico in order to show that the role of scientists might not differ too much from that visionaries. They are the scientists who, after an arduous endeavor of research and reflection, configure the different aspects that constitute the reality of the world in which humans inhabit...

-- Roberto Emmanuele Mercadillo Caballero, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa


Lenticulostriate arteries and subcortical structures (35)

3D rendering of lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs) segmented from T1w turbo-spin echo with variable flip angle (TSE-VFA) images at 7T, each color represents a LSA branch. LSAs are overlain on putamen (purple), caudate (yellow), globus pallidus (blue) and thalamus (orange), as well as minimum intensity projection (minIP) of TSE-VFA images.

--Jim Stanis, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California

Piecing the Brain Together (37)

-- Antonia Machlouzarides-Shalit, Inria, Universite Paris-Saclay

Tiny pieces of mind (24)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, we honor our home of Barcelona and its artistic Icon Gaudi. Fitting, as nature was always his inspiration.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


Cerebral Litograph (26)

The Deep Learning Team at QMENTA produced amazing images by combining the beauty of human brain MRI anatomy with patterns inspired by our favorite artists. In this piece, the Escher brings the right balance of order within the chaos (or is it the other way around?) that characterizes our favorite organ.

-- Irina sanchez, Santi Puch & Salvis Are, QMENTA


There's a Riot Going On (28)

8"x10" hand embroidered and painted depiction of the riot of thought processes and interplay of neurons in the brain always going, not always under control. 

-- Laura Bundesen, Mount Holyoke College

As above, so below (30) 

-- Teodora Stoica, University of Louisville

Failed Hippocreatures (32)

Hippocreatures are prone to wandering away from their home planet and into brain imaging studies. Visual quality control of imaging analyses is crucial in identifying stray Hippocreatures and returning them to their natural habitat.

-- Artemis Zavaliangos-Petropulu, University of Southern California


What is compassion? It is an experience… an inner one (34)

TECHNIQUE: Multicolor threads pressed into bee wax and wooden board.  FORMAT: 20 x 30 cm. YEAR: 2014 DECRIPTION: The work portrays a Buddhist monk of Tibetan tradition in a state of compassion meditation. This meditation assumes a state of attentive introspection and expansion of feelings of unconditional well-being towards all sentient beings, consciously and intentionally generated from inner experiences, unique and inaccessible to others. Although inaccessible, the outer background, what we observe outside the monk's internal world, shows his experience through a tapestry of dual neurons that activate the excitatory and inhibitory processes that characterize the flow of consciousness in the human nervous system...

-- Roberto Emmanuele Mercadillo Caballero, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa


3D-printed Earrings inspired by Neurodiversity (36)

The design was created using the brain outline provided. The print was then coloured in bright rainbow colours and (of course glitter) to celebrate neurodiversity. 

--Zuzana Pinkosova, University of Strathclyde


Social stigma, more firing (38)

The art here depict socializing based anxiety and the brain activity(anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala).

--Ritu M Borah, National Brain Research Centre, India


Cortical alignment failure in nostalgic console green (40)

Image depicts registration failure between 2 surfaces of the upper left hemisphere of the human brain, illustrated with Blender.

--Anastasia Brovkin, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf


Valley of the shattered hollow cortex (42)

Failed Topology Simplification on HCP Cortical Surface in Blender.

--Anastasia Brovkin, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf


Unity in diversity (44)

--Laura Bell


Ramony Magritte (39)

--Antonia Machlouzarides-Shalit, Inria, Universite Paris-Saclay


The hollow cavern of the shattered cortex (41)

Inside of a left hemisphere mesh, prior to topological optimisation, visualised in Blender and retouched in GIMP for constant and colorcurve.

--Anastasia Brovkin, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf


I see you (43)

Correlates of mean BOLD signal from eye orbits

--Cemal Koba, IMT School of Advanced Studies Lucca

Too Pretty to be True (45)

--Yi-Ju Lee, Academia Sinica

Thought Forms (46)

gel and metallic pens, 25 x 25cms, 2020

--Richard Bright


Thought Forms (emanating) (48)

gel and metallic pens, 50 x 50cms, 2019

--Richard Bright


Neural Communication No.16 (47)

gel and metallic pens, 25 x 25cms, 2019

--Richard Bright


Neural Communication No.25 (49)

gel and metallic pens, 30 x 30cms, 2019

--Richard Bright


How do you know me? (50)

--Yi-Ju Lee, Academia Sinica


Memory of Color (52)

--Linda, Alzheimer/PCA sufferer


Warholesque (51)

--Linda, Alzheimer/PCA sufferer


Squiggly Brain (53)

--Linda, Alzheimer/PCA sufferer


--Allison Nugent, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH

From Pieces (54)

A slice of my brain, fashioned from stained glass, ceramic tile, smalti, glass rod, and glass rocks.

Diversity of the 7 (55)

Open Science -- Where Diversity is Welcome

--Derek Pisner, University of Texas at Austin


EUNOIA (56

(adj.) beautiful thinking; a well mind

-- Ashley Charlotte Joseph

3D Art

Extasis (57)

-- Pedro Galusso

Threading Emotions Weaving Reality (60)

Threading Emotions Weaving Reality 

Holly Warren


Perivascular spaces (62)

Perivascular spaces (PVS), also known as Virchow-Robin spaces, are fluid-filled structures that accompany vessels entering (penetrating arteries) or leaving (draining veins) the cerebral cortex. Mapping PVS has significant clinical value because it plays a key role in the circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid and also clearance of metabolic waste out of the brain. We have built an automated computer-aided technique to accurately map PVS using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which was informed by radiology experts for optimization. The video shows 3D rendering of PVS volume across the brain, which can be used to categorize PVS based on their morphology. 

-- Jim Stanis, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California


Harmonic Dissonance: an immersive brain art installation exploring human connectedness (64)

Harmonic Dissonance is an immersive art/neuroscience experience exploring the friction between social interdependence and individual agency through Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) art using EEG. By navigating an audio-visual landscape reflecting the extent to which their inter-brain connectivity, groups of people co-create an ever-evolving, fluid social network composed by this brain-based ‘group cohesion’. 

-- Suzanne Dikker, New York University


BigBrain Slice 25 (66)

8ft x 6ft wood, volcanic rock, moonstone, smokey quartz and steel

-- Celesti Kozub, McGill University Montreal Neurological Hospital Institute

A Musical Introduction to Mitochondrial Function at Synapses (67)

This video is a teaser of a larger project from Piece of Mind, an initiative merging neuroscience research with performance art. Here's a snippet from one of the pieces we've been working on to represent the neurobiology of Parkinson's disease, and which will be performed by professional dancers in the not-so-distant future! We've just focused on the mitochondria to give you a taste, but the full version will include representations of different proteins altered in Parkinson's disease, and how these interact to impact neurotransmitter release and mitochondrial function at synapses.

-- Anusha Kamesh (on behalf of Piece of Mind)


Clear sight (58)

Light-Sheet image of a cleared mouse brain immunohistochemically stained for Neuronal cell bodies and Cell nuclei

-- Philip Ruthig, MPI CBS, Uni Leipzig


Memories Lost (59)

The brain is the human archive. A wonderful mechanism that selects, catalogues, stores and retrieves experiences as memories. When needed memories are moved, shifted and placed were needed. At times they can jump a line, be overshadowed or blocked ...then there is darkness.

Holly Warren


Piece of Mind - Parkinson's Disease Research in Motion (61)

Piece of Mind - Parkinson's Disease Research in Motion

Naila Kuhlmann (Piece of Mind Collective), McGill University 


THC Exposure is Reflected in the Microstructure of the Cerebral Cortex and Amygdala of Young Adults (63)

The endocannabinoid system serves a critical role in homeostatic regulation through its influence on processes underlying appetite, pain, reward, and stress, and cannabis has long been used for the related modulatory effects it provides through tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). We investigated how THC exposure relates to tissue microstructure of the cerebral cortex and subcortical nuclei using computational modeling of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data in a large cohort of young adults from the Human Connectome Project.  

-- Jim Stanis, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California


Using NIRS to shine light on the brain (65)

-- Laura Bell, Jana A. Kruppa, Vanessa Reindl, Alexandra Niephaus, Simon H. Kohl, Kerstin Konrad, Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich

The Developing Brain (68)

A young girl's brain, 3D printed from MRI scans at 3, 5, and 7 years old. The models were painted with a 'heat map' to highlight cortical thickness across each model. The 'hotter' an area is the thicker her cortex in that area! The 3D models enable viewers to quickly and interactively see where the cortex is thickening and thinning across development.

--Bryce Geeraert, University of Calgary

Blooming Brain (69)

The red color of flower indicates the blood that cultivates the brain dynamics.

--Yi-Ju Lee, Academia Sinica


Thoughts (69)

--Yi-Ju Lee, Academia Sinica

Who am I? (69)

Look into the brain for yourself.

--Yi-Ju Lee, Academia Sinica


Journey of A Neurotransmitter (70)

Neurotransmission is the process through which brain cells (neurons) communicate using chemical signals. See if you can hear the 7 steps of neurotransmission between a presynaptic neuron and a postsynaptic neuron!

--Anusha Kamesh


Brain synergy (71)

This animation was created from a Limaçon curve subjected to an optical self-imaging computational simulation, based on the Fast Fourier Transform. 

--Jorge A. Salas, Vanderbilt University


Active Memory (72)

A reflexion about Memory and how we recall interconnected pieces of thoughts creating a visual, evocative and sensitive brain mapping.

The artist's brain data has been measured while remembering memories. Those data have been added to the piece as an artistic component.

--Sandra Djina Ravalia, Contemporary visual artist and Hypnotherapist

Vote for your favorite (closed) 

Winners announcement at OHBM: 

July 3, 22:30 - New York / 03:50 +1d - London / 10:50 +1d - Hong Kong  

OHBM Brain Art SIG