Neuroaesthetics in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Collaboration.

Abstract

Neuroaesthetics is a burgeoning discipline concerned with the neural basis for the perception and creation of art1 and neuroscientific mechanisms of human aesthetic experiences.2 Research in this field has combined principles of neurology, neuroanatomy, psychology, and art history to answer questions about the experience of beauty.2 Vision has received particularly close attention, especially human perception of faces, paintings, landscapes, and architecture.3 Neuroaesthetics has made meaningful contributions to unraveling neurologic mechanisms underpinning the aesthetic experience, previously regarded as a philosophical concept. Research has demonstrated aesthetic evaluations are important for human activity in consumer behavior, mate selection, and determination of morality.4 The field has identified neuroanatomic structures implicated in the perception of beauty broadly, notably the medial orbital frontal cortex, as well as cortical and subcortical structures specific to certain visual or auditory experiences.2 Within plastic surgery, neuroaesthetics overlaps with the specialty’s goal of characterizing optimal aesthetic outcomes for people. Plastic surgery research on aesthetic preferences may be augmented through collaboration with our colleagues in neuroaesthetics, who offer valuable expertise in neuroscience and aesthetic principles. In return, plastic surgery offers clinical, anatomic, and human aesthetic perspectives that may broaden the neuroaesthetic scope of inquiry. The fields complement one another to enhance the sophistication of questions posed, data generated, and analyses of those data. One example of such a collaboration is the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Human Appearance, in which neuroaesthetics, plastic surgery, oral surgery, dermatology, oculoplastic surgery, and ear, nose, and throat play key complementary roles in designing studies that enhance understanding of appearance and clinical outcomes. Examples of the center’s initiatives include employing crowdsourcing to compare layperson aesthetic preferences, applying eye-tracking technology to characterize gaze patterns toward visual stimuli, and leveraging face databases to associate character traits to those with facial anomalies.1 Such studies have had an effect on understanding clinical outcomes in aesthetics, craniofacial surgery, and breast surgery. These clinical studies may be augmented with techniques common to the neuroaesthetics toolbox, including functional magnetic resonance imaging or magnetoencephalography to characterize brain activity in response to visual stimuli or convolutional neural networks to learn image features from datasets.5 Other efforts to leverage architectural and artistic principles are also poised to improve health care infrastructure and optimize the patient experience. Plastic surgery has not been regarded as a subdomain of neuroaesthetics inquiry. Plastic surgery would be an asset to the evolution of neuroaesthetics and should seek opportunities to foster relationships with colleagues in this nascent field. This convergence of interests is an exciting opportunity to continue plastic surgery’s history of collaboration to answer unique, multidisciplinary questions with implications for the outcomes of our patients. Disclosure The authors have no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this article.