One of the things I have always appreciated in its many forms is pictorial art. As the use of my hands has reduced, I’ve been able to produce an awful lot less of it, but my appreciation of other people’s art has not changed.
This gallery of images(go through the slideshow) is a case in point. Dunn noticed the similarity between blowing ink across paper and neuron form. He is a neuroscientist, so the comparison would be foremost in his mind, and the art he has produced is striking both aesthically and in familiarity.
I, being a mathematician who has done a fair amount of neuronal modelling, see neuronal forms when playing around with other mathematical tools. Take for example this simple fractal flame I made with Apophysis:
It is simple to see the somas and dendrites within this fractal. There is a reason for this. Neuron growth can be described in fractal terms. There is a touch of pareidolia to seeing things in such fractals as that flame, and a lot of people see fractals in virtually everything living, but that paper shows that neuronal growth can be modelled quite closely using fractal techniques.
Land of Gregs 