title: Fractals and the birth of Gothic: reflections on the biologic basis of creativity.
abstract: The birth of Gothic, one of the great triumphs of human spiritual and artistic expression, would appear to be a topic remote from the enterprise of contemporary neurobiology. The intent of this brief essay is to explore the possibility that this singular architectural movement may have important implications for understanding the nonlinear dynamics of the brain. We explore the hypothesis that the Gothic cathedral, with its porous, scale-free structures, may represent an externalization of the fractal properties of our physiology in general, and of our neural architectures and neuro-dynamics, in particular.
authors.affiliation: Harvard-Thorndike Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Goldberger
mesh_terms: D003405:Creativity; D017709:Fractals; D006801:Humans; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics