Guest blog by Michael Posner, Ph.D., who started Brain Awareness Week early by taking part in a lecture on Feb. 2 at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, part of Oregon Health and Science’s 2009 Brain Awareness Lecture Series. The session, as usual for the series, sold out the 800-seat theater. This is Oregon Health and Science’s 10th year celebrating Brain Awareness Week.
As a participant in the Arts and Cognition grant and report sponsored by the Dana Foundation, I was asked to be in a panel discussion on the subject for Brain Awareness Week 2009 in Portland. The panel was headed by John Frohnmayer, past Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Helen Neville and I represented that Cognition and the Arts studies and two major Oregon creative figures, Dan Wieden, founder and principal of the internationally known advertising firm, Wieden & Kennedy (“Just Do It!…Nike”) , and Chris Coleman, creative director for Portland Center Stage and passionate advocate for the arts.
The panel was lively, inventive, insightful and fascinating—both for all the participants and, we were told, by the audience as well. This type of interactive arts and science forum is unique and help foster more dialogue between researchers and the arts community. It seems to be the type of connection between the neurosciences and the arts that the Dana Foundation is encouraging…”growing brains and brain power” at the local level!
After the panel, a “creatives” reception was held with nearly 20 arts groups, who provided not only information but an opportunity for increased interaction. This novel approach is leading to an ongoing connection between the neuroscience outreach (Brain Awareness) program and the community of arts groups in the city and the state.
Michael Posner, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at the University of Oregon and adjunct professor of psychology in psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell, where he served as founding director of the Sackler Institute. Dr. Posner also is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.
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