This open-access peer-reviewed article represents a collaborative effort between the IAM Lab and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Health System. It analyzes how the arts and aesthetic experiences have fostered and enhanced relationships between diverse, distinct groups in an effort to build comradery, trust, and engagement. It explores the role of the arts and aesthetic experience to create homophily, foster transitivity and balance, enhance collaboration and build meaningful connections between healthcare systems and social networks to more effectively address health concerns for all involved.
In this peer-reviewed research article, “Intentional Spaces” from IAM Lab explores the intersections of health, architecture, and design. It reports on a qualitative study that convened international experts from various disciplines to discuss how built environments affect human health and well-being. Through focus groups, six key themes emerged: opportunity, engagement, interdisciplinarity, research, funding, and recommendations. The study highlights the importance of public awareness, interdisciplinary collaboration, and equitable application in advancing the design of health-promoting environments.
This IAM Lab open-access research overview focuses on the science behind pareidolia, examining how our brain perceives familiar patterns, like faces, in random stimuli, and its implications in neuroscience, psychology, and clinical research.
This IAM Lab peer-reviewed open-access article focuses on the devastating global youth mental health crisis and outlines the worldwide implementation of arts and culture based strategies to address it.
This article explores the benefits of integrating community arts and culture resources into healthcare referral networks, emphasizing the positive health impacts and equity considerations, and highlights two successful initial models, the CultureRx initiative in Massachusetts and Creative Forces, as promising examples of this integration.
In this peer-reviewed article, IAM Lab examines and evaluates the Impact Thinking Framework (ITF), and how it can aid researchers and practitioners of various disciplines, as well as help further the field of neuroaesthetics.
This report highlights 2022 milestones for the International Arts + Mind Lab, and the next steps for furthering the neuroaesthetics field in 2023 and beyond.
In this peer-reviewed and open-access publication, IAM Lab evaluates CultureRx, the first arts-on-prescription model in the United States.
In this peer-reviewed publication, IAM Lab releases the first qualitative study of its kind to address the barriers in analyzing music’s effects on mental health, due to a current lack of synthesized findings and research.
In this report, IAM Lab’s research director Tasha Golden evaluates CultureRx, the first “arts on prescription” program offered in the United States. Launched by Mass Cultural Council in 2020, CultureRx allows healthcare providers to prescribe arts and cultural experiences to help patients or clients with their health needs.
In this peer-reviewed publication, IAM Lab releases the first scoping review undertaken to identify the extent to which effects of setting and aesthetics on psychedelic experiences and therapies have been explicitly studied.
In this peer-reviewed publication, IAM Lab releases an evaluation of a citywide literary arts initiative, One Book Baltimore. The program provided the same book to seventh and eighth-grade students in Baltimore City Public Schools as a means to amplify underrepresented narratives, reduce stigma, and generate dialogue about sensitive topics such as violence and mental health.
This NeuroArts Blueprint is breaking new ground at the crossroads of science, the arts, and technology and presents both a five-year plan and a longer-term vision of a mature neuroarts ecosystem dedicated to improving human health, strengthening communities, and promoting culture change.
In this peer-reviewed publication, IAM Lab releases a qualitative study that is the first to address barriers in the multidisciplinary fields of music and mental health by gathering current thought leaders and stakeholders, representing multiple disciplines and backgrounds.
In this peer-reviewed publication, IAM Lab releases a global scoping review that evaluates previously published research on music-related interventions for serious mental health issues and provides recommendations on how to improve future studies to advance the field.
In this study led by Drexel University in collaboration with IAM Lab, Dr. Girija Kaimal and Dr. Arun Ramakrishnan report that participants have positive psychosocial responses to virtual art-making experiences combined with fragrances.
In this report, IAM Lab shares a snapshot of research, community-building and education and outreach efforts in 2019. We also discuss our plans for 2020 and how we are responding to the needs of our community in the wake of the global pandemic.
Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America is a two-year national initiative designed to accelerate innovation at the intersection of the arts, community development, creative placemaking and public health.
Led by the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine and ArtPlace America, the initiative released a white paper entitled Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration in partnership with several contributing organizations including IAM Lab.
The paper frames the value of the arts and culture for advancing health and well-being in communities.
This primer on neuroaesthetics shares how music, art, theater, dance, literature, landscape, and media have the power to help treat any number of disorders and improve one’s quality of life.
IAM Lab proposes the development of an Impact Based Thinking Approach (IBTA), research approach to enhance human potential in health, wellbeing and learning through the arts.
In this special issue of ChildArt magazine edited by the International Arts + Mind Lab, Executive Director Susan Magsamen shares the marriage of the arts and brain research and introduces neuroaesthetics to new audiences around the world.