Abstract
A worldwidemental health crisis is expected, as millions worldwide fear death and disease while being forced into repeated isolation. Thus, there is a need for new proactive approaches to improve mental resilience and prevent mental health conditions. Since the 1990s, art has emerged as an alternative mental health therapy in the United States and Europe, becoming part of the social care agenda. This article focuses on how visual esthetic experiences can create similar patterns of neuronal activity as those observed when the reward system is activated. The activation of the reward structures could have a stress buffering effect, given the interdependence observed between the reward and stress systems. Therefore, could visual esthetic experiences stimulate mental resilience? And if this were the case, could art-based interventions be offered for mental health in the context of COVID-19 and beyond?
Highlights
Isolation, fear, and financial/occupational instability created by the current COVID-19 situation are expected to generate an upsurge in mental illnesses globally (Rajkumar, 2020; Torales et al, 2020)
Dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which modulates stress vulnerability (Gillies et al, 2014), have dopaminergic connections to the same reward system structures that have been found to become activated by visual art stimuli, which we discuss in more detail below
As the COVID-19 variants threaten to extend the duration of this pandemic, the widespread emotional distress increases the risk for psychiatric illness
Summary
Fear, and financial/occupational instability created by the current COVID-19 situation are expected to generate an upsurge in mental illnesses globally (Rajkumar, 2020; Torales et al, 2020). United Kingdom research already shows an increase in levels of anxiety, depression, and stress due to current financial challenges (Türközer and Öngür, 2020) This reinforces the urgent need to discover new complementary interventions to help improve low mood and alleviate mental health risks (Holmes et al, 2020). We discuss how reward brain activation following visual art exposure could promote stress-buffering effects, based on the interdependence observed between the rewards pathway and the sympathetic nervous system. These observations would help to show how visual esthetic experiences could stimulate mental resilience
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