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Brain Topogr (2011) 23:392402 DOI 10.1007/s10548-010-0163-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Artists Advance: Decreased Upper Alpha Power while Drawing in Artists Compared with Non-Artists
Mara Kottlow Elke Praeg Christine Luethy
Lutz Jancke
Received: 10 January 2010 / Accepted: 1 October 2010 / Published online: 14 October 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Brain mechanisms associated with artistic talents or skills are still not well understood. This exploratory study investigated differences in brain activity of artists and non-artists while drawing previously presented perspective line-drawings from memory and completing other drawing-related tasks. Electroencephalography (EEG) data were analyzed for power in the frequency domain by means of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) was applied to localize emerging signicances. During drawing and related tasks, decreased power was seen in artists compared to non-artists mainly in upper alpha frequency ranges. Decreased alpha power is often associated with an increase in cognitive functioning and may reect enhanced semantic memory performance and object recognition processes in artists. These assumptions are supported by the behavioral data assessed in this study and complement previous ndings showing increased parietal activations in non-artists compared to artists while drawing. However, due to the exploratory nature of the analysis, additional conrmatory studies will be needed.
Keywords Artists Drawing EEG Alpha Plasticity
LORETA
Introduction
Recently, there has been growing interest in collaboration between arts and sciences (Frazzetto and Anker 2009). Not only are artists getting inspired by scientic work, but scientists are also becoming interested in the secrets of artistic skills, represented for example by drawing.
Drawing a previously seen picture from memory combines different functions. Thus, along with visuo-motor processes, semantic and episodic memory as well as spatial attention processes may be required. In this article we want to concentrate on the former two processes, semantic memory and visuo-motor processes, which have been associated with oscillations in the upper alpha frequency range (Klimesch 1997; Klimesch 1999; Klimesch et al. 2005).
Drawing and motor imagery of drawing have been investigated with fMRI in untrained subjects. These studies revealed mainly activations of the parietal cortex and motor areas, while decreased or no activation was found in the temporal lobe (Ferber et al. 2007; Harrington et al. 2006; Makuuchi et al. 2003). Activations from the imagination of...