Zvezdan Pirtošek (SI)

Category: Science and health

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that visual arts as well as music have a clear impact on the human brain. The lecture will first present the basic anatomy and main processes, relevant for the understanding of this impact (e.g. reward system, focused attention, stress, anticipatory and prediction-related structures of the frontal lobe, limbic system). Next, a demonstration of how a brain disease changed some established artists’ artistic expression will be shown. The last part of the lecture will ask the question about the purpose of arts from the neuroscientific point of view, also focusing  on evolutionary theories of art and the brain.

Professor ZVEZDAN PIRTOŠEK (SI) is a consultant neurologist, Head  of the Neurology department at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana (UL), Neurology & Neuroscience Professor and co-founder of the Interdisciplinary International Middle European postgraduate study of Cognitive Sciences, MEI:CogSci, at the Universities of Ljubljana, Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. His main research interests include neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, along with cognitive neuroscience and ageism as a form of discrimination and  prejudice. For his contribution in the field of treating dementia, President of the Republic of Slovenia distinguished him with The Order of Merit.

Co-funded by the European Union Creative Europe Programme.