Beauty and the Brain: in some ways we ALL think alike

The way I see it, everyone could be a winner in this scenario

I caught this story a couple of days ago, and it reminded me of a previous topic in our podcast.  We talked about a reporter who allowed her brain activity to be imaged while...stimulating herself.  We also discussed a study that showed a difference in one specific area of the brain, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).  Apparently, the OFC was more active during solo naughty time vs. when a partner provided the pleasure (try saying that 5 times fast).  The OFC is associated with imagination and creative thinking, so the idea here is that you're probably fantasizing about something when engaging in "happy time", but not so much when you've got a helping hand...or two...or more...

Sorry, my OFC took over for a second there.

Go on, you know you wanna hit that Jump!



Back to this story:  some recent data published in PLoS One from a group out of the University College of London show that a specific area of the OFC, the medial OFC (mOFC), became more active when the subjects experienced things that they felt were beautiful.  The study included 30 paintings and 30 music samples, and the mOFC was more highly correlated to beautiful representations of either medium than any other part of the brain.

A VERY interesting idea here is that you have different people who have lived different lives and presumably have different ideas of what beauty is, but many of them - at least their mOFCs - showed they agreed on what could be considered beautiful.  An article over at Discover Magazine goes into the philosophy of what constitutes beauty, and the authors of the study think that our brains may be, in some way, responsible for perceiving beauty.

As with a lot of behavioural studies, there are some caveats (I think I've used that word before - someone give me a new word for this, please).  Firstly, the study showed correlation, not causation, meaning the only conclusion that can be drawn from this study is exactly what was observed:  there is a higher activity in a specific region of the mOFC with a higher perception of beauty.  That's not to say that the mOFC causes the perception of beauty, nor does it say that the mOFC by itself is responsible for perceiving beauty.  The brain is highly connected and there are several areas that are constantly being activated and inactivated, and it's the entire milieu of interactivity that contributes to our perceptions, sensations, thoughts, etc.

This study does bring up an interesting evolutionary question:  do humans share some conserved idea of what is beautiful?  I just googled the most beautiful woman and Google Images spat out a string of Aishwarya Rai pics (does that happen to everyone or do I need to clear my browser history...again?).  But below is a computer-generated image of a woman who possesses a combination of ideal features, as determined from a survey of men:

I've looked into your eyes, madam, and I would like my soul back!

What do you think?  Hit it?  Sport it?  Obviously everyone has a different opinion, but - like it or not - the evidence in this paper tells us that the same area in each of our brains is activated when we experience beauty.  It's kinda poetic, but it's also really cool science.