CELL PRESS

The pink and grey blob inside your skull doesn’t fit within conventional standards of beauty. But to celebrate Brain Awareness Week, Cell Press compiled a number of articles that focus on the more artistic and handsome aspects of the brain.

The most stunning item is a slideshow of the mouse “brainbow,” a series of microscopic pictures of brain cells expressing fluorescent proteins. Using a method of genetic recombination, the researchers, who published their work in 2007, created a pallet of around 90 colors using just four base fluorescent colors. And, with recombination occurring at random, the result was a splendid array of neuronal color.

Another more artistic topic is the neuroscience of music. One article follows a single note through the mind of pianist Franz Liszt, who is thought to have had perfect pitch and synesthesia.

And who could think about the neuroscience of music without remembering Snowflake,...

The special round-up also includes a variety of articles about cognitive science, including sex differences, brain size, and hypnosis.

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