V.S. Ramachandran. Photo courtesy of the University of California.

Twenty years ago the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) told us environmental pollution killed brain neurons. Today it is telling us the parietal lobe is particularly susceptible. If the NIEHS is right, then we could be losing the ability to appreciate art. The most accessible of neurologists – VS Ramachandran – hints at why in his new research on Phantom Limb Syndrome.   In studying the syndrome where people who have lost a limb still think they can feel it, Ramachandran has traced the neurological basis – called synesthesia (a mingling of the senses) – to the angular gyrus in the brain’s parietal lobe (which also spawns out-of-body experiences).  Ramachandran says the angular gyrus is also where humans first understood metaphors, back when we learned to climb trees to escape predators. He says those actions were driven by abstract thought and a mental map of our arms and legs. He’s already deconstructed the neurological basis of art and metaphor in Art and the Brain. But if we’re poisoning our ability to appreciate art, humans could end up with a Phantom Creativity Syndrome.