Some of the AoN team's favorite submissions for the 2017 competition.

1. Art of Neuroscience 2017
Team Favorites

3. Tiled autophagy
By:
Claudio Bussi (National University of Cordoba, Argentina)
Description:
Electron microscope image showing a microglial lysosome (left, big vesicle) and a double-
membrane autophagosome (right, small vesicle) in close proximity.Autophagy is an
intracellular degradation system that delivers cytoplasmic constituents to the lysosome.
As an essential process to maintain cellular homeostasis and functions, autophagy is
responsible for the lysosome-mediated degradation of damaged proteins and organelles,
and thus misregulation of autophagy can result in a variety of pathological conditions in
human beings.The image captured the instant before lysosomal fusion.

5. The Brain
By:
Brennan Klein (Northeastern University, USA)
Description:
Description: Recently, I have found myself trying to analyze calcium imaging data from
cortical neurons of a mouse. The patterns of activity in these data were astonishing. In
front of me were hundreds of blob-like neurons, periodically bursting in a slow, greenish
glow, illuminating the sinewy connections between them. It was as if these cells were
collectively breathing, as if they were a giant mass of organized chaos, little starlings
flocking and unflocking, under no central command, loosely maintaining order. The most
beautiful patterns emerge during a massive migration of birds, and they emerge simply
from local interactions between the component parts of the system. This observation can
be powerfully described using principles from complexity science and methods from
network science, both of which have also richly informed the study of neuroscience in
recent years. It is an exciting time to be a scientist, and I have tried to convey my own
excitement in the details of every single part of this piece.

7. Starry Night
By:
Christophe Leterrier (NICN, France)
Description:
Sample: Hippocampal neurons after two days in culture, fixed and labeled for
microtubules (cyan) and actin (orange).
Imaging: Mosaic (tiled) acquisition with a 40X objective on an epifluorescent microscope
(Zeiss).
Post-processing: Isolated neurons or group of neurons have been manually shifted
relative to the others in order to obtain a more regular image
Scale: The whole image (8400x6300 pixels) represents an area of 1365x1024 microns. At
300 dpi, the image dimensions are 71x53 cm (28x21 inches).

9. The Creation of Inspiration
By:
Robin Scharrenberg (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Description:
"Only after the intellect has planned
The best and highest, can the ready
hand
Take up the brush and try all things
received."
- Michelangelo
This image is inspired by Michelangelos "The Creation of Adam". Depicted in it is a
montage of two pyramidal cells from the upper layer of the somatosensory cortex of mice
brains. With an in-utero electroporation approach the cells were labeled with GFP. These
cells were then submitted to confocal imaging and
to give the resulting image the look of an old fresco it is displayed in false colors, with
processes in the background acting as the blemishes of an aged fresco.
The Contribution is an interpretation of "The Creation of Adam" with processes of the two
neurons pointing towards each other to form a "synapse" so the "divine spark" can pass.
The resulting change in activity enableing inspiration to take form.

11. Slicing the rat connectome
By:
Michel Sinke (UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands)
Description:
Our non-invasive diffusion MRI-based quantification of whole-brain axonal connections
combines the power of sensitive, non-invasive tissue probing, with accurate multi
resolution tract reconstructions, by means of multi-shell global tractography, in rat brain
left in the skull. This tissue-friendly method creates unique potential for longitudinal
studies. The simultaneous access to local microstructure information and global
stereotaxic orientation already provided us with unique insights in the axonal olfactory
bulb pathways in the rats, in the cerebellar topology and the complex fiber bundle
crossings in cortico-striatal circuits. This image shows a sagittal slice of the rat brain
clearly visualising brain structures such as the corpus callosum, cingulum bundle,
brainstem and the arbor vitae of the cerebellum.

13. Harmony in Numbers
By:
Marvin Weigand (Ernst Strungmann Institute, Germany)
Description:
In this work we show that according to optimal wiring principles neural maps appear
suddenly with increasing cell numbers (here along the spiral towards the middle) even as
the underlying connectivity remains unchanged. Each dot represents a neuron at its
specific location and colors indicate the feature tuning of these neurons, e.g. their
orientation preference in the visual cortex.

15. Mindless Process
By:
Krisztina Czika (Rietveld Academy, the Netherlands)
Description:
The project was inspired by the lecture, “If brains are computers, who designs the software?” by Daniel Dennett.
A philosophical approach related to neuroscience that was explained at the Royal Institution on 6th April, 2017.
His thoughts and examples shaped my conceptual art and design perspective.
We live in a society where technology has developed to such an extent because of our improved intelligence over
time. Questions, dreams and fantasies start to relate to each other, so I asked myself:
Would it be possible to recreate the nervous system with a technological process, like 3D printing?
Instead of using already existing 3D printing systems, I started autonomously working with chemistry and electricity.
My aim was to make these two elements communicate with each other to create an interpretation of the nervous
system. The process is simple: halogen lights using electricity provide heat that slowly warms up the glass. Since
glass has the advantage of remaining at a consistent heat, the wax is able to change consistency and melt. The
motion of dripping and melting creates “prints” and the shape of the prints are based on the heat settings.
While building the installation, in order to visualise how perikaryon and dendrites can be physically created, shape-
wise, I found that all the actions performed by the installation are examples of how our nervous system functions.
Today, the first intelligent designers in the tree of life (with reference to Daniel Dennett) are in a vulnerable position.
They are changing the world and holding a mirror up to the face of society, making people feel, reflect and question
existence. Yet, they are also in the position of being able to collaborate with science, explore the crossovers and
discover new perspectives.