PowerArtMinds: Art, Brain Health and Prosociality

Introduction

The PowerArtMinds: Art, Brain Health and Prosociality project was launched with the aim of promoting brain health emotional wellbeing, and prosocial behaviors amongst children and adolescents living in the underserved neighborhoods of Peñalolén, Santiago de Chile. This initiative is led by the Latin American Institute of Brain Health (BrainLat) and the University of Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI), in collaboration with the Municipality of Peñalolén, and with seed funding provided by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab.

Children and adolescents in underserved urban areas experience elevated stress, limited access to psychosocial resources, and growing emotional and cognitive vulnerabilities. Despite this, they often lack structured programs that combine creative engagement with brain health education, social connection, and prosocial skill-building. PowerArtMinds addresses this gap by using the arts as an accessible, culturally grounded tool to strengthen wellbeing and resilience.

Scope

This project design includes a three month multicomponent intervention that integrates artistic practice—such as dance, theatre, circus arts, and later, crafts, embroidery, choir, recycling arts, and more—with structured activities that teach self-regulation, empathy, cognitive flexibility, and community-oriented values.

Over a 12-week period, BrainLat tutors and local instructors co-design and deliver a multicomponent intervention that blends creative expression with brain health literacy and practical well-being tools, and pre- and post-evaluations are conducted to assess changes in cognitive-emotional indicators and social engagement.

PowerArtMinds operates within a broader international framework that positions the arts as a scalable public health resource, aligned with current WHO recommendations and the mission of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab. As a municipality with strong cultural programming but limited access to structured brain health education, Peñalolén makes an ideal setting for cross-sector collaboration between academia, local government, and community arts organizations.

Insights and Deliverables

With a focus on research, community building, and social outreach, the PowerArtMinds project plan seeks to:

• Map local cultural institutions to identify and connect arts organizations in the municipality
• Provide workshops and training for tutors and workshop leaders on key program topics
• Design and implement the intervention, integrating arts activities into brain health and prosociality content
• Deliver talks and awareness workshops, open to the community, on the overlap between art and well-being
• Conduct an impact assessment, using quantitative and qualitative tools, including natural language analysis
• Host Creative Brain Week Chile 2026, a culminating event that will promote conversation between the science and art sectors in Chile

Project Team

Led by Dr. Agustín Ibáñez (BrainLat, UAI) and coordinated by Alejandra Davidziuk (BrainLat, UAI), the project team brings together researchers, community partners, and arts educators committed to advancing brain health and prosocial development through creative practice. The research and field coordination are led by Carolina Panesso (BrainLat, UAI), with institutional articulation supported by Claudia Hoffmann and Lorena Díaz from the Vice-Rectorate for Community Engagement at UAI.

The project also sees international collaboration from Dr. Nisha Sajnani (Jameel Arts & Health Lab, NYU Steinhardt) and experts from the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at the Trinity College Dublin, who contribute expertise in arts and health, global brain health, and community-based research.

Key community partners include Constanza Jara (Cultural Corporation of the Municipality of Peñalolén), Lorena Andrea Ríos Chamorro (Unión Nacional Árabe School), and a team of 14 arts instructors and workshop leaders responsible for delivering the creative components of the program. Project implementation engages 34 tutors, including undergraduate and postgraduate students from UAI, who facilitated group activities and evaluation procedures.

Funding and Support

Support for this project was provided by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab.