The Origins of NeuroArts and NeuroArt

The Origins of NeuroArts and NeuroArt 

People often ask me where the NeuroArts and NeuroArt actually come from.  I think the reason this question keeps coming up is because neither of them started as an original method or a clearly defined system. They didn’t appear overnight, and they weren’t invented in one moment.  They emerged gradually, as our understanding of the brain, creativity and human experience began to come together.

At the same time, they are also incredibly old.

Long before written or spoken language existed, our human ancestors were already drawing. They marked cave walls, stones, bodies, tools.  These marks were used to communicate with one another and spiritual forces that they believed existed, as well as ways of coping with the changing environment, uncertainty and transition.  Our ancient ancestors knew that creating marks in ritual changed themselves and their relationship to ordinary and non-ordinary reality.  In many ways, this is the deepest origin of what we now call NeuroArt.

What changed in more recent history is that science finally began to pay attention to something artists and cultures had always known intuitively: the aesthetic experience affects the brain.  This is where the field of neuroaesthetics comes in.  Neuroaesthetics studies what happens in the brain when we experience beauty, harmony, colour, shapes and form.  It looks at why certain images calm us, why others energise us, and why aesthetic experiences can feel meaningful on a very deep level. 

One of the pioneers of this field was Semir Zeki, who helped show that beauty is not abstract or subjective in a vague sense, but something that can be observed in brain activity.

As this research developed, it became clear that art is not just something we look at. Art does something to us, it moves and inspires us.  It affects emotional regulation, attention, motivation, memory and even how we relate to ourselves and others.  This broader understanding gave rise to what we now call NeuroArts.  

NeuroArts is not a single practice or technique. It is a whole field that brings together neuroscience, psychology, medicine, education, public health and the arts to explore how creative activity supports human wellbeing and resilience.

An important moment in shaping this field was the creation of the NeuroArts Blueprint, developed through Johns Hopkins University. The Blueprint helped articulate something many practitioners were already experiencing: the arts are not an optional extra in our lives.  They are essential to health, learning, social connection.  This marked a shift away from seeing art as a luxury and toward recognising it as a biological and social necessity.

It’s also worth saying that the word NeuroArt is sometimes used in a broader academic and contemporary art context.  In this sense, NeuroArt describes artistic practices that are influenced by knowledge of neuroscience and the nervous system, rather than being therapeutic or process-based drawing practices.  This usage comes directly out of the academic fields of neuroaesthetics and NeuroArthistory, where researchers and art historians explore how the brain shapes artistic perception, creativity and visual language.

The term NeuroArthistory itself was created in 2005 by John Onians, a professor of art history at the University of East Anglia.  His work proposed that understanding how artists’ brains function could offer new insight into art history itself.  Instead of seeing artistic style as purely cultural or symbolic, NeuroArthistory asks how perception, neural development and sensory experience influence the way artists see and create.

This academic use of NeuroArt sits alongside, rather than in opposition to, the more human, everyday practices of NeuroArt and the NeuroArts. 

The academic view is through the lens of neuroscience from the outside.  Human view allows people to experience those principles through drawing, making and other creative pursuits. 

Both stem from the same realisation: the brain, nervous system and aesthetic experience are deeply intertwined.

NeuroArt sits within this wider NeuroArts landscape as the drawing-based, visual expression of these ideas. If NeuroArts is the bigger picture and included music, dance and movement, poetry-writing, etc., NeuroArt is what happens when this understanding meets pen and paper.  It focuses on simple lines, shapes, colour and process rather than artistic skill or performance. The emphasis is not on creating something to be judged, critiqued or scored, but on how the act of drawing affects the nervous system, emotions and perception while it is happening.

This is also why NeuroArt has appeared in exhibitions and public spaces over the past years, often in the form of interactive or experiential art that invites people to feel and respond rather than simply observe. These exhibitions reflect a growing awareness that art is not passive. It is participatory, embodied and relational. However, NeuroArt does not truly belong in galleries alone. Its real home is much more ordinary and much more human.

NeuroArt lives in communities, classrooms, coaching sessions and sometimes around the kitchen tables.  Most people practise it without ever using the word or knowing that it even exists. They doodle to calm their mind, to process emotions or to think more clearly. 

Developing science has simply provided language and structure for something humans have been doing instinctively for millennia.

This understanding is also what shaped the creation of the Art of Manifesting Method™ aka the AM Method™, which is featured in The Art of Manifesting book. The method was designed as an accessible, everyday way to work with intention and meaning through simple doodling.  It uses very simple universal elements like dots, lines, shapes, symbols and colour to help people regulate their nervous system, reflect on their inner world, connect with something bigger than themselves - the divine - and open themselves to new perspectives and communicating with a conscious Universe.  It requires zero artistic skills, abilities or perfection.

What matters most is that NeuroArt and the NeuroArts remind us of something very basic but very important. Creativity is not something reserved for artists. It is a natural human need. 

Drawing and doodling are a powerful way for the brain and body to communicate.  When we make marks on paper with intention and attention, we are engaging in a process that is both ancient and supported by modern science.

Every time you doodle, draw, sculpt or paint, you’re already engaging in NeuroArt.  It doesn’t need to be serious or beautiful or “correct” to be helpful. Just making marks is enough.  So keep doodling.  Keep drawing.  Keep mark making. Honestly, it’s so good for you!  In that sense, NeuroArt is a people’s art and is truly for everyone.  It belongs to anyone willing to pick up a pen and begin.