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A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was one of the most influential artists of the Western world, having shaped the post-impressionist art movement by shifting its boundaries forward into abstract expressionism. His distinctive style, which was not valued by the art-buying public during his lifetime, is nowadays one o...

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Autores principales: Turkheimer, Federico E., Fagerholm, Erik D., Vignando, Miriam, Dafflon, Jessica, Da Costa, Pedro F., Dazzan, Paola, Leech, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7370815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32754073
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00685
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author Turkheimer, Federico E.
Fagerholm, Erik D.
Vignando, Miriam
Dafflon, Jessica
Da Costa, Pedro F.
Dazzan, Paola
Leech, Robert
author_facet Turkheimer, Federico E.
Fagerholm, Erik D.
Vignando, Miriam
Dafflon, Jessica
Da Costa, Pedro F.
Dazzan, Paola
Leech, Robert
author_sort Turkheimer, Federico E.
collection PubMed
description Vincent van Gogh was one of the most influential artists of the Western world, having shaped the post-impressionist art movement by shifting its boundaries forward into abstract expressionism. His distinctive style, which was not valued by the art-buying public during his lifetime, is nowadays one of the most sought after. However, despite the great deal of attention from academic and artistic circles, one important question remains open: was van Gogh’s original style a visual manifestation distinct from his troubled mind, or was it in fact a by-product of an impairment that resulted from the psychiatric illness that marred his entire life? In this paper, we use a previously published multi-scale model of brain function to piece together a number of disparate observations about van Gogh’s life and art. In particular, we first quantitatively analyze the brushwork of his large production of self-portraits using the image autocorrelation and demonstrate a strong association between the contrasts in the paintings, the occurrence of psychiatric symptoms, and his simultaneous use of absinthe—a strong liquor known to affect gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) alpha receptors. Secondly, we propose that van Gogh suffered from a defective function of parvalbumin interneurons, which seems likely given his family history of schizophrenia and his addiction to substances associated with GABA action. This could explain the need for the artist to increasingly amplify the contrasts in his brushwork as his disease progressed, as well as his tendency to merge esthetic and personal experiences into a new form of abstraction.
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spelling pubmed-73708152020-08-03 A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh Turkheimer, Federico E. Fagerholm, Erik D. Vignando, Miriam Dafflon, Jessica Da Costa, Pedro F. Dazzan, Paola Leech, Robert Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Vincent van Gogh was one of the most influential artists of the Western world, having shaped the post-impressionist art movement by shifting its boundaries forward into abstract expressionism. His distinctive style, which was not valued by the art-buying public during his lifetime, is nowadays one of the most sought after. However, despite the great deal of attention from academic and artistic circles, one important question remains open: was van Gogh’s original style a visual manifestation distinct from his troubled mind, or was it in fact a by-product of an impairment that resulted from the psychiatric illness that marred his entire life? In this paper, we use a previously published multi-scale model of brain function to piece together a number of disparate observations about van Gogh’s life and art. In particular, we first quantitatively analyze the brushwork of his large production of self-portraits using the image autocorrelation and demonstrate a strong association between the contrasts in the paintings, the occurrence of psychiatric symptoms, and his simultaneous use of absinthe—a strong liquor known to affect gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) alpha receptors. Secondly, we propose that van Gogh suffered from a defective function of parvalbumin interneurons, which seems likely given his family history of schizophrenia and his addiction to substances associated with GABA action. This could explain the need for the artist to increasingly amplify the contrasts in his brushwork as his disease progressed, as well as his tendency to merge esthetic and personal experiences into a new form of abstraction. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7370815/ /pubmed/32754073 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00685 Text en Copyright © 2020 Turkheimer, Fagerholm, Vignando, Dafflon, Da Costa, Dazzan and Leech http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Turkheimer, Federico E.
Fagerholm, Erik D.
Vignando, Miriam
Dafflon, Jessica
Da Costa, Pedro F.
Dazzan, Paola
Leech, Robert
A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title_full A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title_fullStr A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title_full_unstemmed A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title_short A GABA Interneuron Deficit Model of the Art of Vincent van Gogh
title_sort gaba interneuron deficit model of the art of vincent van gogh
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7370815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32754073
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00685
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