Is aesthetics universal or regional? (Author: Evgeni Gerginski) The answer is: both! The term itself is not a constant, but is characterised by history and culturally interpreted differently time and again. Originally, it comes from the ancient Greek word "aisthesis", which can be translated as "sensation" or "perception", and describes the science of sensory observation. In other cultures, such as the Far East, the term "bimyogaku" has been established since the end of the 19th century, meaning "the teaching of beauty". There is therefore a clear difference in the meanings. It can therefore be assumed that the focus of aesthetics varies from culture to culture. In India, architecture, music and poetry are among the main arts, whereas in Japan it is the Buddhist experience of the world. In China, musicians are even equated with politicians. To understand and feel aesthetics, it is not enough to simply look at it. Knowledge of the respective culture is indispensable. Western viewers generally always look for symmetry and order, which are present in Chinese art, but only become visible through background knowledge. Despite the different perspectives on beauty, internationalism spread in architecture at the beginning of the 20th century. This current of classical modernism asserted itself across national and cultural borders with its functional and minimalist approaches. It can therefore be said that there are forms and proportions that generally trigger stimuli in the human brain that are based on a universal beauty. Increased mobility and thus the endeavour to achieve uniform standards presumably contributed to this development. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics have taken a closer look at the question of universal beauty and gained interesting insights into the human brain: The areas responsible for visual processing showed little pattern of activity. In contrast, the so-called default mode network (region for daydreaming, mental shutdown, analyses and resting state) surprisingly showed similar activity patterns for the images perceived as beautiful in all test subjects. We are looking forward to the next research results on universal aesthetics!