The paintings of Brueghel and Rubens hanging on the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen must have been amazed. In recent months, they have indeed been confronted with some very strange visitors. Because those who stopped to contemplate them were wearing strange glasseseye tracking (eye movement recording), a NIRS headband (Near Infrared Spectroscopy, a portable brain imaging device allowing the recording of brain activity in the prefrontal cortex) and on the wrist a so-called electrodermal activity sensor (analysis of sweating and heart rate).
Why such equipment? Because of a multidisciplinary research project that is, to say the least, innovative, Art, well-being and the brain, conducted within the Caen museum itself as part of the city's millennium and supported by the scientific interest group “Blood & Brain @ Caen Normandy” (BB@C), the University Hospital of Caen and the professional network of digital arts and cultures in Normandy (Oblique/s).
A project at the crossroads of neuroscience, psychology and digital sciences
Its particularities: being located at the crossroads of neuroscience, psychology and digital sciences. As forThe objectives are to better understand the effects of art on the brain, to evaluate the well-being provided by visiting a museum while studying the functioning of the brain when faced with a work of art. But the experimenters plan to go even further and to focus – for the first time – on the exchanges existing between two brains, the study protocol having planned that the works would sometimes be the object of a duo observation!
What is of particular interest to scientists here is precisely the demonstration of a possible synchronization of the participants' emotions, such as that which is created between the brains of several musicians playing in the same ensemble.
At the helm of this highly original project are two pilots from the University of Caen Normandy, Véronique Agin, professor of neuroscience, and Denis Vivien, professor of cell biology and hospital practitioner at the Caen Normandy University Hospital Center, in collaboration with colleagues from four different laboratories*, and assisted by several students currently working on their thesis. “ Our methodology is applied in real conditions in situ of a museum. Working with such equipment and a group of 200 people had never been done before., insists Véronique Agin. Our ambition is to identify, through exhaustive and ecologically adapted measurements, the cerebral, cognitive and socio-emotional mechanisms involved during visual confrontation with works of art..
Here, the volunteers, all healthy and aged 18 to 65, were divided into three groups: two experimental groups (80 participants each) and a control group (40 participants). Although only the participants in the two experimental groups were equipped with the measuring devices (glasses, headbands, bracelets), all made two visits to the museum and had to, before and after, answer questionnaires assessing their well-being and also perform several cognitive tasks (number repetition, shape recognition, etc.).
But the experimenters added an important detail to their protocol: during the first visit, only one of the two experimental groups benefited from cultural mediation, that is to say, information relating to the work (historical, technical, etc.), read by a professional as they passed in front of the painting. For the second experimental group, there was also an individual visit to the museum but no mediation.
On the other hand, during the second visit, carried out a few weeks apart, all the participants saw works again but this time systematically in duo, " according to pairs having randomly matched the participants, one having received mediation, the other not, explains the neuroscientist. During this second time, the two people could then exchange freely and verbally with each other, for example by sharing any information received during the first visit.Will emotions arise from these memories, from this sharing? Will they be present simultaneously for each member of the pair?
The desire to create a research laboratory entirely focused on the intimate links between art and science
It is precisely this highlighting of a possible synchronization between two brains and its impact in terms of emotions that interests neuroscientists. We expect, among other things, that the variation in emotional responses will be linked to variations in the activation of the fronto-limbic circuit.", says Professor Agin. For the moment, all visits to the museum have been completed and it is time to analyze the large amount of data (eye, brain and physiological recordings) which will be cross-referenced in the coming months with the results of the questionnaires and cognitive tests. First results expected by mid-June 2026.
“ This will allow us on the one hand to determine whether the discovery of the works, as well as the proposed mediation, lead to an increase in well-being and cognitive abilities and on the other hand to verify our hypothesis, that is to say that better executive abilities are found after the visit, with a more marked gain among volunteers being in a positive emotional state., says Professor Agin. The specialist continues: “ Above all, we want to scientifically support the health benefits of art. because most of the studies conducted to date still suffer from numerous methodological weaknesses ".
Thus, different experiences (in the United States, Canada, Belgium…) have certainly already prescribed museum visits on prescription, the perception of the benefit of attending museums often outweighing any real scientifically proven demonstration of the activity. This is why, before proposing blind museum visits, it is important to rely on solid psychological and cerebral data., insists Professor Agin. We therefore need to better understand the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie the stimuli in our environment, whether social, physical, cognitive, dietary, chronobiological or even artistic.
This work, currently only conducted with healthy volunteers, could subsequently be continued with patients suffering from cardiovascular, neurodegenerative or psychiatric diseases. We could also create pairs with a sick person and a companion, an autistic child and their school support worker, a senior with Alzheimer's and their caregiver.", precise Professor Agin. But many researchers at the University of Caen are already synchronizing their ideas to call for the creation of a research laboratory entirely focused on the intimate links between art and science.
For more information: https://artbienetrecerveau.fr/
*PhIND Neuroscience Laboratory: UMR-S Inserm 1237), NIHM psychology laboratories: UMR-S Inserm 1077 and LaPsyDÉ: UMR CNRS 8240), GREYC digital sciences laboratory: UMR CNRS 6072).
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