American Scientist

To the Editors:

I received my September–October issue today and was immediately drawn to Greg Dunn’s Arts Lab column, "Etching the Neural Landscape." The column is intriguing, and Dunn’s artwork is stunning. Nevertheless, I am curious as to why the article contains no mention of the work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the pioneer of neuroscience who produced many exquisite pen and ink drawings of neurons and neural structures. It seems that Cajal deserves at least a nod of recognition; his influence on Dunn would be difficult to dismiss.

Jeff Del Col
Philippi, WV

Dr. Dunn responds:

As Del Col points out, any discussion of neuroscience art would be remiss without mention of the great pioneer Ramón y Cajal, whose work has deeply influenced my own. My loftiest debt of gratitude toward Cajal—a gifted neuroscientist, artist, and anatomist—is through his work with Camillo Golgi to develop the silver staining technique that revealed the forms of neurons to the world for the first time. In fact, due to the nature of this technique, wherein the stain impregnates a random and sparse assortment of neurons with black stain against a yellow background, the connection between the aesthetics of the brain and minimalist Japanese and Chinese sumi-e painting on gilded grounds was made all the more apparent.