{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]],"date-time":"2025-07-30T16:08:15Z","timestamp":1753891695883,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":93,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,14]],"date-time":"2022-10-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1665705600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Integr. Neurosci."],"abstract":"<jats:p>What do neuroscientific visualizations of mental functioning depict? This article argues that neuroscientific imaging from Santiago Ram\u00f3n y Cajal\u2019s pen and ink drawings onward falls within the mimetic tradition, that dealing with the artistic representation of reality. Cajal\u2019s iconic images of pyramidal neurons and glial cells surprisingly suggest a non-realist approach to picturing the brain and the mind that opens a new methodological link between humanities and neurosciences. In it, aesthetic works offer a perspective on mimetic practices in neurosciences, providing insight into representational strategies that make otherwise invisible psychic phenomena observable. This approach draws needed attention to the role of metaphor in neuroscientific research. It also reimagines how interdisciplinary scholarship might engage with works of art. While it is a common practice to read humanities objects featuring the brain and\/or the mind in terms of their neuroscientific content, films like<jats:italic>The Headless Woman<\/jats:italic>(La mujer sin cabeza, dir.<jats:xref>Martel, 2008<\/jats:xref>), explored here, show that doing so can easily inhibit interpretations with greater explanatory bearing. Together, Cajal\u2019s images and Martel\u2019s film help elaborate a fresh methodological paradigm\u2014distinct from that of neuropsychoanalysis\u2014that situates aesthetic objects as a long-neglected tool for studying the brain by virtue of (not despite) their imaginative investments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnint.2022.760785","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,14]],"date-time":"2022-10-14T15:18:21Z","timestamp":1665760701000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Neuromimesis: Picturing the Humanities Picturing the Brain"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Cate","family":"Reilly","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,14]]},"reference":[{"journal-title":"Mimesis.","year":"2003","author":"Auerbach","key":"B1"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"83","DOI":"10.1086\/673227","article-title":"Freud and the Matter of the Brain: on the Rearrangements of Neuropsychoanalysis.","volume":"40","author":"Bassiri","year":"2013","journal-title":"Crit. 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