ReviewArquivos de neuro-psiquiatria2026
A neurological perspective on Tarsila do Amaral's "Abaporu": migraine aura inspiring art?
Review in Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Pain on the stage: a historical-neurological analysis of Afife Jale, Türkiye's first Muslim actress.Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Tarsila do Amaral's painting "Abaporu" is a seminal work in Brazilian modernist art, yet its interpretation continues to intrigue scholars due to its complex symbolism.To examine "Abaporu" through the perspective of neuroesthetics, exploring potential parallels between its visual elements and sensory disturbances characteristics of migraine aura.A structured review of primary and secondary art-historical sources and a systematic literature search in PubMed and Google Scholar were conducted. The analysis focused on Amaral's recurrent use of disproportion and gigantism in the 1920s and on evaluating the plausibility of a neuroesthetic hypothesis in this art-historical context.Our analysis indicated that the gigantism and deliberate deformation in "Abaporu" belong to a consistent program already evident in Amaral's 1920s painting. From this perspective, the painting's oversized feet and hands contrasting with a diminutive head evoke perceptual alterations reminiscent of macropsia and micropsia, phenomena linked to Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and migraine aura. Its vibrant palette and melancholic undertones, likewise, resound the sensory disturbances and affective dimensions associated with migraine, suggesting that Amaral's programmatic distortions also invite a neuroesthetic reading.While no evidence supports a medical diagnosis of migraine in Amaral, the visual motifs and techniques in "Abaporu" can be read both as deliberate esthetic strategies of her Pau-Brasil and Anthropophagic phases and as intuitively resonant with neurological models of altered perception. This dual lens enriches our understanding of art's capacity to embody complex perceptual experiences and encourages further interdisciplinary dialogue between art history and neuroscience.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.