I read an interesting book about the brain recently.
It told the stories of a number of patients who had suffered brain injuries, to illustrate how different parts of the brain had different functions, and what happened when these functions were disrupted.
In one case study, there was an artist in New York who lived by painting. His paintings were very bright and colourful. One day he was involved in a traffic accident and suffered a head injury. He quickly recovered from his injury, except for one detail. He lost the ability to see colours. His eyes were uninjured, but the part of the brain which interpreted light signals as colour had been damaged. He could only see the world in shades of black and white.
The artist suffered from a severe bout of depression, since he no longer felt able to paint his bright, colourful pictures. He began to sleep longer during the day, and to sit up awake at night. The nighttime world of moonlight and dimly lit streets seemed more suited to shades of grey than bright colour. Eventually the artist started painting nighttime scenes in shades of grey, and no longer missed his ability to see in colour.
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