My father majored in art in high school, and he started college but didn’t graduate because World War 2 came along and he wanted to serve. He taught me how to draw 3-dimensional objects on a flat piece of paper. Every time I think of art, the first association is with my father. So naturally, art therapy, which the acute rehab I was in didn’t offer, got me interested in researching it.
Art therapy offers several neurological benefits for individuals with brain injuries. By engaging different neural pathways, art activities can help reorganize brain activity and promote recovery.
Art therapy appears to benefit the brain-injured in several ways. First, accomplishing art helps multiple brain regions all at once, pushing new neural pathways to form. Next, art activities often use both brain hemispheres, encouraging new communication between them. Also, art therapy can help activate the limbic system, which often suffers after brain injury.
In addition, the nature of art improves concentration, planning, and decision-making, all of the cognitive functions commonly flawed after brain damage. Also, art provides an alternative communication channel for patients with language deficits including aphasia, thus reducing frustration and isolation while employing cognitive assurance.
Art therapy clouts this process in specific ways. Art makes use of visual processing areas, motor planning regions, spatial reasoning centers, and memory circuits simultaneously. This multi-system activation helps strengthen existing neural networks and develop redeeming pathways around damaged areas.
The self-gratification gotten from art brings about dopamine release which augments learning and brain restructuring. This positive reinforcement makes survivors more likely to join in art activities more consistently.
Studies suggest that new sensory experiences during art stimulate flourishing growth in neurons, creating potential for new pathways. The tactile touch of different engagements such as paint or clay, for example, gives off tactile encouragement.
Targeted drawing exercises for survivors with visual-perceptual deficits or neglect can help retrain neglected visual fields or attention and improve overall inequities.
In clinical settings, art therapy is used in brain rehabilitation settings. For example, gradual skill-building is used to improve fine motor control. Also, structured drawing activities focusing on specific deficits are used.
Furthermore, group art sessions are used in developing social re-entry. Sequential progression for individuals with hemiparesis or coordination issues from complicated activities to fine detail work helps rebuild and control motor pathways.
For executive function networks, often damaged in frontal lobe injuries, the prefrontal cortex benefits from art therapy through materials, choosing colors, and compositional fundamentals. Controlling spontaneous actions to achieve desired artistic outcomes is preferred. Adapting to unexpected results during the innovative process is encouraged.
Art prompts multiple memory systems like recording the experience of creating art in actual time, even when nobody is talking. This prompts learning and remembering art techniques. Just as valuable is ownership of visual information while accomplishing artistic judgments.
Brain imaging studies have shown the increased relationship between brain regions following art therapy interventions. The EEG (an electroencephalogram test which can find changes in brain activity that might aid in diagnosing brain conditions) shows changes in brainwave patterns, most likely increased alpha wave activity associated with relaxed attention, a perfect state for brain restructuring.
Said by Vincent Van Gogh himself, “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” It applies to everybody, even the brain-injured.
