The relation between art and neuroscience or cognitive development is a topic that is especially interesting to me as it impacted how I learned as a young student. What I learned this week supported idea of my personal cognitive growth and how it helps academic success. The study of the mental processes in how we learn and the arts have shown that involvement in the arts play an important role in brain development. For instance, learning to make music and listening to music can strengthen a child’s spatial reasoning. Neuroscientists are finding that listening to music helps raise an IQ and can physically strengthen your brain. They have also found that there is a direct correlation between brains stimulated by music and brains stimulated by math. It’s an intriguing understanding that this art form can play an important part in math and the sciences. 
The arts can directly be connected with the elements of how the brain learns. Research in this area indicates that the brain learns best in rich, complex, and multi-sensory environments and the emotional interaction that happens while participating in an art can influence the learning process. 
How our brains perceive art and what it does with it helps us understand the emotional and decision-making part of the brain. How we see lines and color or hear sound, feel rhythm helps scientists understand how the brain processes these particular properties and then how specific parts of the are affected. The effects of art can be correlated to the production of emotions from different parts of the brain. For example how fear is produced from the brain, the amygdala, or pleasure from the nucleus accumbens, and problem solving in the prefrontal cortex. This understanding overall has helped students when they are exposed to art in an effective way develop cognitive, social and emotional skills necessary to be successful in academics, but more importantly, in life.
"Art and Neuroscience: A State of the Union." The Beautiful Brain RSS. N.p., 09 Sept. 2012. Web. 18 May 2015. <http://thebeautifulbrain.com/2012/09/art-and-neuroscience-state-of-the-union/>.
Section III. London: n.p., 1896. Web.http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Key-Topics/Arts-Education/rbc-toolkit-section3.pdf
"NeuroScience in Art Therapy." NeuroScience in Art Therapy. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2015. <http://neuroarttherapy.blogspot.com/>.
"Art and the Limits of Neuroscience." Opinionator Art and the Limits of Neuroscience Comments. N.p., 04 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 May 2015. <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/art-and-the-limits-of-neuroscience/?_r=0>.
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