Donations to schools usually don't go anywhere.

Whether it's the schooling of your children in the future, or the convenience of medical treatment at King's College, the tangible and intangible rewards are many.

"Ms. Elena, thank you for your selfless support of the education industry......"

However, ten minutes later, the enthusiastic voice of Vice President Hunt came from the phone.

His tone was even a little flattering.

It stands to reason that King's College is also a top university with a reputation in the world, and its medical school was opened during the Wanli period of Eastern Xia, more than 200 years before North America became independent.

Its executive vice president is also a majestic man outside.

But in the face of the rich man who can take out a sky-high check and donate it for free, Hunter is still a little nervous.

King's College also receives millions of euros in alumni donations each year.

However, most of the donations are transactional donations that cost hundreds of thousands of 200,000 euros and want to buy an enrollment tilt for their children.

Generally, add a name to the thank you plaque in the campus lobby and donate to your son's daughter to get a special admission place.

Half a million euros is enough.

A donation of 5 million euros is quite rare.

All the foreign tycoons who can afford to pay this money to support education usually choose the more famous Oxford, Cambridge, or London Economics and Imperial College.

King's College is a bit less popular.

Vice Chancellor Hunter typed the name of the Yelena Charitable Foundation into Google, and immediately discovered that it was a private charitable foundation with considerable assets and a generous grant for the education industry.

The news has reported.

In 2017, it was the Elena Foundation that donated a total of 11 artworks, including three prints by Matisse and an oil painting by Edvard Munch, to the campus art gallery of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

The auction house conservatively estimated the total value to be more than £12 million, which was one of the top five donations in British education that year.

My school can be targeted by this kind of big guy.

Vice Principal Hunt was blessed.

"I have contacted the professor in charge of our medical school for the project [Autism Spectrum Disorder and Cerebral Cortex Visual Reflex Correlation and Brain Micro 3D Model Test] that you wanted to know about before. I would like to ask, do you have any family members who would like to participate in this experiment? ”

Vice Principal Hunter asked tentatively.

"This is easy to arrange, but after all, it is still in the exploration period, and we dare not guarantee the final effect."

The donor's tycoons naturally have the right to make all sorts of reasonable or unreasonable demands.

Except for an old George V library on campus, renamed the Elena Library.

The principal also personally called and invited Ms. Elena to visit their beautiful campus and give a speech.

But the other party all refused.

The woman's only request was to inquire about the internal progress of a research project under the medical school.

This had to make the vice principal have something else to think about.

"Hmm...... You can understand it, but I don't need to be involved in the experiment, I just need to ask a few questions. Anna calmly commanded, "Is it convenient?" ”

"Of course, of course. In fact, the professor in charge of the project is here with me right now. I'll let him tell you personally. ”

The vice-principal said immediately.

An old gray-haired scholar was sitting in the office of the Executive Vice Chancellor, impatiently filling in a Sudoku game from the newspaper.

After receiving a call from Miss Elena from the Foreign Affairs Department of the campus, he sent a secretary to call the professor from the medical school.

In addition to hanging a sign in front of the library, a check for 5 million euros is naturally eligible for an unpopular professor to explain the progress of the research in person.

Hunter holds down the phone.

The smile on his face narrowed a little, and he said to the old man in front of him with the majesty of the executive vice principal.

"The other party just donated 5 million euros to our school, so ...... You know, you say whatever people ask. ”

Draw a pie for investors and pull outside research funds for schools.

Originally, it was an important part of the scientific research life of a Western-style university.

"What does she want to know? I've already sent her an email before, and the information that can be released to the outside world is all in it, so she can't just read it herself. Waste of time. ”

The old pedant put down his pencil and spoke in a not very friendly tone.

He's quite annoyed with this kind of social routine of serving a big guy.

Hunter knocked on the table, and under his threatening gaze, the professor took the phone honestly like an old ram who was tied by the neck, bowed his head and said weakly: "Hey, hello, I am the leader of this project team." I have sent you an email before. ”

"I received a synopsis of your research, but I don't have a medical background and can't read the complex charts and data. You conclude at the end that the process of reading "The Little Prince" and the next half hour. Compared with the control group, the degree of stimulation of the cerebral cortex mOFC (orbitofrontal cortex) was significantly increased on the MRI imaging images of patients with autism. ”

Miss Elena opened a file on her computer.

The girl flipped to the end of the last page, where the researchers came to a preliminary conclusion, and asked with a frown, "Can I consider this good news?" ”

"Can it be considered? If that's not good news, what else is! ”

When it comes to the main research areas, the old professor's tone obviously becomes excited, "This is a very significant research progress. ”

"Explain to me, please?"

"Well, it's complicated to be specific, who made Ling a layman with no professional background-"

Cough!

Vice Principal Hunt coughed heavily.

"Okay, I'll just explain it to you so simply. There are a total of 160 different functional areas of the cerebral cortex related to vision. Neuroscientists are trying to find the area of the brain that has the strongest correlation with aesthetics. mOFC is the one that humans react the most strongly to when they appreciate art and produce visual stimuli. ”

"In other words, in the eyes of scientists, it is a module used to define 'beauty.'"

Anna whispered.

"That's right! What is an attractive work and what is not, the degree of irritation in the orbitofrontal cortex region can tell us the answer. ”

"A colleague of ours did a survey. He took a sample of different volunteers and played 16 different sets of pictures on a computer screen. It was found that when they looked at the paintings, the corresponding areas of their cerebral cortex were activated. For one of the art students, what does it mean that looking at Ingres's "Spring" makes the brain react more strongly than a picture of a girl? ”

The old professor foamed at the mouth and said: "This shows that in his brain neural network, the artistic stimulation of oil painting is more than the physiological stimulation of opposite-sex nudes." ”

In other words, when we talk about the artistry of painting, we are talking about nothing more than the active response of the cerebral cortex caused by the molecular structure of certain chemicals and neurotransmitters triggered by certain visual stimuli. The University of California has even established a research program in neuroaesthetics for this reason. You get the idea! ”

"Personally, I believe that artwork has its own complex and unpredictable transcendental philosophy, and that the aesthetic stimuli we can appreciate are linked by a unique soul bond between the painter and the viewer, which cannot be interpreted simply by secreting chemicals." Miss Elena paused.

The girl's gaze swept over the various brain MRIs on the computer screen, and said with interest: "Of course, I respect your scientific perspective, please continue." ”

Whether it was Anna, or her aunt, her ancestors, or even Sir Brown.

Their art concepts may be different, but the people in these circles have a perceptual understanding of art from the environment they lived in and the education they received from childhood.

Aesthetic faculties are the tools given by the gods to humans to communicate with heaven with mortal souls.

A rational reading of scientism may make sense.

But if you look at a beautiful work of art, your body trembles as much as you feel when you put a few electrodes into a mouse's brain.

It's too unaesthetic.

Of course, the first time Anna heard this interpretation from the cerebral cortex, it was quite interesting.

"Transcendental philosophy, soul bond, cut, why don't you believe that God really exists?" The old professor snorted casually.

"Ahem!"

Vice Principal Hunter's coughing tonsils were about to spit out, and he stared wildly at the side.

"I don't know if God exists, but I really believe that the moment an artist paints a great work, it is the muse that descends on them, giving them two-dimensional images and real life, not just graffiti by one or two painters."

Anna didn't get offended, just smiled.

"To get back to the point, what does this prove, Detective Cat's work does have an effect on autism, right?"

"So to speak. As you may know, patients with high paraplegia are called people who are in a physical prison because of their physical limitations. Compared to a disabled person with a broken spine, a child with autism is more like a person locked up in a body. It wasn't the atrophied muscles that locked him up, but the brains of Mu Ran. ”

"So medical professionals want to stimulate them through art or music, to build up their perception of the outside world."

"People with autism are very numb to external stimuli, or they only respond to a few specific perspectives, but that's hard to find. And the illustration of the new version of "The Little Prince" is exactly such an image. ”

"Aren't other fairy tale books good?"

"It's fine, but it doesn't have such an amazing effect."

The old pedant said with admiration: "If you can understand the graph data on the MRI, if the reaction effect of an ordinary fairy tale book is likened to the ripples produced by blowing on the surface of the lake, then "The Little Prince" is throwing a stone into it." We have observed similar images when playing some symphonies. So classical music used to be the focus of our research. But now "The Little Prince" is more effective than Mozart. ”

"Got it."

Anna nodded: "So the illustration of the detective cat can indeed produce a good effect on the patient." ”

"Hmm...... But here's what I need to make clear. One of the most interesting things about the new version of The Little Prince is that it stimulates a child's brain at a very low cost. After all, neither Mozart's music nor the illustrations of The Little Prince were created specifically for any single case, nor were they created to treat autism. We're looking for a low-cost, universal treatment modality—"

Not being good at socializing also has the advantage of being not good at socializing, that is, honesty.

If a person with high emotional intelligence in long-sleeved dancing, in the face of a wealthy man, the person in charge of the scientific research project will naturally blow the project under his hand as much as possible.

But the old pedant hesitated for a few seconds.

In the end, he said honestly: "...... So with your financial resources, you can donate 5 million euros to the university, rather than buy a copy of "The Little Prince" for a child, or send it to our medical school to participate in some experimental therapy. It is better to send your child to a nursing facility like Kennedy Medical Center. There is a whole art team working with psychologists to provide special services for patients, and this kind of customized treatment plan will be more effective. ”

"If I could get a detective cat to draw some illustrations for a patient under the guidance of a psychiatrist that might be helpful, would it be better than sending it to a private rehabilitation center?"

I heard the crisp voice of the girl in the microphone.

The person in charge fell silent.

Please come to the detective cat...... He still underestimated the willfulness of these rich people.

Since The Little Prince works, so does the illustration therapy tailored to the patient.

Indeed, the combination of the two should work best.

"Or, to put it more bluntly, you can give me a clear conclusion. Is it the fairy tale book "The Little Prince" that really plays a role, the way to draw with a knife, or the illustrator Detective Cat? Which of these three is the key to unlocking the patient's heart defense? ”

Miss Elena asked straight to the point.

The person in charge continued to be silent.

This is also the most puzzling place for the old pedant in his research now.

Knife Painting, The Little Prince, Detective Cat.

It stands to reason that this problem controls variables, and several control groups are designed to do experiments, and conclusions are drawn at once.

The same is true in practice. He and his students easily ruled out the option of "The Little Prince".

In the realm of fairy tales, it is a bit too mature and profound.

Although the reading threshold is low, it is not the type of bedtime story that "Snow White" reads for children.

Neither the text of "The Little Prince" nor the original illustrations of Saint-Exupéry are of great interest to young people with autism.

Only the dozens of pictures on the new version of the fairy tale book have the ability to activate their cerebral cortex to respond.

That's the credit of the knife painting.

It's also a reasonable answer to think about, this thick cream-like pigment texture and bright and moving picture effect. Originally, it is the visual pattern that stimulates the human brain to react the most.

The problem is, like witchcraft, it seems that only those knife drawings of the detective cat have such good results.

It doesn't make sense!

(End of chapter)