How Your Brain Reads Beauty Before You’re Aware of It

A conversation with Dr. Anjan Chatterjee on neuroaesthetics

In this episode of Embodied, Kathy Covington sits down with Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, neurologist, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and founding director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, to explore how beauty, design, art, and environment shape the brain long before we’re consciously aware of it .

Recorded during the Global Wellness Summit in Dubai, this conversation dives deep into neuroaesthetics — the emerging science that explains how our brains continuously decode light, color, shape, texture, movement, and imagery as signals of safety, interest, calm, or activation.

Dr. Chatterjee shares how the field of neuroaesthetics emerged, why beauty was historically overlooked in neuroscience, and how research over the past decade has revealed that aesthetic experiences — including our engagement with art — are not superficial preferences, but central to how humans regulate emotion, stress, and meaning in everyday life .

Together, Kathy and Dr. Chatterjee explore the aesthetic triad — coherence, fascination, and hominess — and how these three elements determine whether a space or experience feels grounding, stimulating, or overwhelming. They discuss why rounded shapes often feel safer than sharp angles, why nature and biophilic design support nervous system regulation, and how thoughtfully designed environments can influence whether we feel at ease, energized, or on guard.

A key part of the conversation turns toward art and presence. Dr. Chatterjee explains how engaging with art can be a practice in awareness and self-discovery — not about knowing art history or “getting it right,” but about noticing sensory qualities, emotional responses, and personal associations. Kathy and Dr. Chatterjee unpack a simple three-step framework for experiencing art: focusing on sensory details, observing emotional responses, and allowing the mind to make meaning through association. This process, they explain, can help reduce stress, deepen presence, and reconnect people with themselves .

The episode also explores how beauty and art intersect with identity, safety, and meaning — and why aesthetic experiences often help us feel more like ourselves. Dr. Chatterjee reflects on how beauty can support healing in clinical settings, why images of nature tend to be calming in high-stress environments, and how biophilic and fractal patterns subtly activate the brain’s reward systems.

As the conversation widens, they examine how culture shapes aesthetic response, how modern environments create mismatches with what our brains evolved to handle, and why awareness of our surroundings — from light and noise to digital overload — is one of the most underused tools for wellbeing today.

The episode closes with a powerful invitation: to pause, pay attention, and begin designing life with intention rather than defaults — whether through spaces, movement, art, or everyday rituals.

In this episode we explore:

• What neuroaesthetics is and why the field has accelerated in recent years
• Why beauty is not a luxury, but part of human biology
• How the brain processes aesthetics before conscious awareness
• The aesthetic triad: coherence, fascination, and hominess
• Why safety and “feeling at home” matter to the nervous system
• How rounded shapes, light, and nature influence mood and stress
• The role of art in presence, self-awareness, and emotional regulation
• A simple framework for engaging with art without intimidation
• How aesthetic experiences connect to identity and meaning
• The difference between sympathetic and parasympathetic activation
• Why awareness of environment is foundational to living well

About the Guest:

Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, MD is a neurologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics — the first research center in the world dedicated to studying how aesthetics shape the brain. He is the author of The Aesthetic Brain and a leading voice in understanding how beauty, art, and design influence cognition, emotion, behavior, and wellbeing .

https://www.pennmedicine.org/providers/anjan-chatterjee

About the Podcast:

Embodied is a podcast exploring the science of living well — mind, body, and connection. Through curiosity-driven conversations, we ask better questions about health, environment, art, and the human experience, and explore how science and lived experience shape the way we live.