Neuroscience in the Public Sphere

Comparative analysis of media coverage concerning the social implications on three life sciences in Japan during 1991-2020

Media coverage is an important determinant of the social conception and public understanding of science. Therefore, understanding the media framing of science and technology is important for science communication. As such, we try to determine the frames that are significant in news coverage concerning science and technology, whether the dominant frames changed over time, and whether there are any overlooked frames. To this end, we focused on news articles on multiple life-science fields in Japan to examine the ethical, legal, and social implications covered in the media of three fields: genetic modification, stem cell science and regenerative medicine, and brain-neuroscience. We examined seven frames (i.e., instrumental science, risky science, juggernaut science, techno-nationalism, governance, communication matters, and trust in science) related to the ethical and social implications for the three technologies. We collected 37,009 articles from the newspaper database. After a pilot analysis of the collected articles based on text mining, we coded a total of 1,805 articles from 1991 to 2020 using random sampling. Our results showed that the frames varied among the three technologies over time and no frame synchronization was observed. This implies that the media coverage of each technology was independent of those of the other technologies. A trend common to all technologies was that the frame "instrumental science" was dominant, meaning that positive opinions predominate in the Japanese media coverage of life sciences. This result suggests ethical issues of life sciences were often missing in Japanese media discourse. An urgent task is to bridge the gap between the discussions of ethics communities and the media coverage. Our study provides evidence of the potential social implications of life science according to assumed for public understanding.

Promoting the internationalization of POPNeuro, a successful neurophysiology outreach program

Here we report a successful initiative between Brazil and Germany to stimulate neuroscience outreach: the POPNeuro Program. The POPNeuro Program is a neuroscience outreach project created in Brazil that has been active for >10 years. It was initiated in Uruguaiana, RS, Brazil and linked to the Physiology Research Group from the Federal University of Pampa. The neuroscience dissemination was developed mainly in school environments by a team that includes neuroscientists and university undergraduate and graduate students. One of the key focuses of POPNeuro is to identify and avoid the dissemination of neuromyths (misconceptions generated by a misunderstanding, a misreading, or a misquoting of scientific facts). After an initial research cooperation, the Brazilian and German teams decided to replicate some of the POPNeuro activities in Germany. The POPNeuro spin-off developed the first activities in Germany, including neuroscience disclosure activities during the Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) Open Campus Day and a Neuroscience of Learning course for sports and physical education teachers. During the activities, participants took a quiz to identify the prevalence of neuromyths and knowledge of neuroscience facts. The results demonstrate a high prevalence of neuromyths between the different participants. Despite the sociocultural differences, these results are in line with previous results from POPNeuro in Brazil. Considering our experience and the participants' evaluations, we are confident that promoting the internationalization of this successful neurophysiology outreach program and expanding the Brazilian POPNeuro program in Germany will have a positive impact. This initiative represents a model of international cooperation that should be stimulated.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The internationalization of scientific work is recognized as an essential resource for quality research in different areas and countries. However, international cooperation is less common in teaching and outreach than in research. We shared the experience of a successful international neurophysiology outreach cooperation between Brazil and Germany: the POPNeuro Program. The success of POPNeuro's spin-off in Germany reveals that promoting internationalization and expanding successful outreach projects have positive impacts.

Replicating the 'seductive allure of neuroscience explanations' effect in a classroom experiment and an online study

The 'seductive allure of neuroscience explanations' effect refers to the observation that superfluous neuroscience information (SNI) added to an explanation can bias judgements of information quality. We report the results of a classroom experiment to sensitize undergraduate students to that issue. In contrast to previous studies, students rated good explanations without SNI the highest. Inspired by these observations, we set out to conceptually replicate the original study using an online experiment that allowed us to directly assess the statistical interactions between explanation quality, the presence of SNI and expertise levels. In this preregistered study, participants (n = 430) with varying levels of expertise rated the quality of good and bad explanations, with or without SNI. Irrespective of the presence of SNI, participants across all expertise levels rated good explanations more favourably than bad ones. Still, the differences were surprisingly small, and the variation in rating was high. We also found a statistically significant interaction between the impact of SNI and expertise, with SNI boosting ratings mostly in participants with less expertise (p < 0.001), corroborating previous findings. Developing a curriculum that trains students to distinguish between actual explanations and 'crap' would ultimately also sensitize teachers and experts that produce and review scientific information.

Possible reasons for reductive seductions: A reply to Wilson et al

Wilson et al. (2025) report a failed attempt to replicate the reductive allure effect: Unlike prior work, they do not find that participants judged explanations of scientific phenomena to be higher quality when they contained irrelevant reductive language. The current commentary considers three possible reasons for this failure to replicate: (1) a change in the nature of online study participants, (2) a change in the background knowledge that people bring to judgments of scientific explanations, and (3) a change in the kinds of explanations that people find satisfying.

The neoliberal leaning of the neuroscience discourse when it deals with mental health and learning disorders

Neuroscience attracted increasing attention in mass media during the last decades. Indeed, neuroscience advances raise high expectations in society concerning major societal issues such as mental health and learning difficulties. Unfortunately, according to leading experts, neuroscience advances have not yet benefited patients, students and socially deprived families. Yet, neuroscience findings are widely overstated and misrepresented in the media. Academic studies, briefly described here, showed that most data misrepresentations were already present in the neuroscience literature before spreading in mass media. This triumphalist neuroscience discourse reinforces a neuro-essentialist conception of mental disorders and of learning difficulties. By emphasizing brain plasticity, this discourse fuels the neoliberal ethics that overvalue autonomy, rationality, flexibility and individual responsibility. According to this unrealistic rhetoric, neuroscience-based techniques will soon bring inexpensive private solutions to enduring social problems. When considering the social consequences of this rhetoric, neuroscientists should refrain from overstating the interpretation of their observations in their scientific publications and in their exchanges with journalists.

Long-term impact of neuroscience outreach interventions on elementary students' knowledge

Neuroeducation is characterized as a subarea of neuroscience that involves comprehending the teaching and learning processes and relating them to neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology. The inclusion of some aspects of the neuroscience of learning in teachers' and students' formation, applying them in teaching-learning environments, contributes to the quality of education and impacts students' quality of life and health. Thus, the POPNEURO outreach program performs interventions with students and teachers of low-income schools to disseminate neuroscience concepts, relating them to the students' daily lives. This study reports the impact of these actions, assessed 1 yr after their conclusion. The results showed that the long-term impact of the activities carried out is, in general, positive. Even 1 yr after the activities end, students demonstrate knowledge about the neuroscience themes and satisfaction with participating.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This article reports on neuroscience disclosure activities performed with school students and describes their short- and long-term positive impact. Even 1 yr after the activities, students demonstrate knowledge about the themes worked on and satisfaction with the activities.

Impression management in sex and gender neuroscience research reporting: the MAGIC guidelines

Here, the authors discuss guidelines to avoid miscommunication of findings in research into sex and gender-based differences in the brain.

The political leaning of the neuroscience discourse about school education in the French press from 2000 to 2020

Political actors pay attention to newspapers because they stimulate them to address a topic, reflect public opinion, provide feedback to their decisions, and help them to generate effective messages. Previous surveys showed that this is true for scientific issues. It follows that the newspaper coverage of scientific issues should appear as politically oriented, as observed regarding climate change. Here, we tested this prediction regarding educational neuroscience. This scientific issue is interesting because it implies no major economic interest and because the relevance of neuroscience regarding teaching in the classroom is still highly controversial. As hypothesized, we observed that the French press appeared strongly polarized: the right-leaning press was mostly favorable to educational neuroscience, whereas critical opinions were mainly found in the social-democrat press. Although the relevance of neuroscience toward teaching was rarely discussed in scientific arguments, political actors often invoked educational neuroscience in the press to legitimate their decision.

Neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs in Asia: A call to action

The center of learning is the brain and the disciplinary science that examines its structure and functioning, and the nervous system as a whole, is called neuroscience. The assimilation of essential neuroscience-related content by educational systems has gained global interest, given the relevance of learning to education. Recognizing the significance of frontline workers, several governmental agencies and educational institutions have launched initiatives to foster the inclusion of neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs. Their success, however, has depended on collaborative efforts among educators, researchers, and other educational stakeholders, and the process has involved considerable debate. Here, we aim to articulate a rationale to promote neuroscience literacy for educators. In doing so, we revisit prior arguments on the importance of training educators and build up on other reasons to advocate for this kind of endeavor considering cutting-edge research. Following this, we discuss critical elements to advance neuroscience literacy for educators and examine the most important challenges to execute successful initiatives. Finally, we appraise the significance for Asia, reviewing the scholarly literature on educators' prior experiences, and highlight the case of Singapore as an exemplar initiative that catalizes human capital, infrastructure, and strategies to advance neuroscience literacy. We conclude by arguing that governmental agencies and educational institutions should strengthen their efforts to accommodate their programmatic plans and agendas to embrace neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs. This global trend has arrived to stay.

Decision neuroscience and neuroeconomics: Recent progress and ongoing challenges

In the past decade, decision neuroscience and neuroeconomics have developed many new insights in the study of decision making. This review provides an overarching update on how the field has advanced in this time period. Although our initial review a decade ago outlined several theoretical, conceptual, methodological, empirical, and practical challenges, there has only been limited progress in resolving these challenges. We summarize significant trends in decision neuroscience through the lens of the challenges outlined for the field and review examples where the field has had significant, direct, and applicable impacts across economics and psychology. First, we review progress on topics including reward learning, explore-exploit decisions, risk and ambiguity, intertemporal choice, and valuation. Next, we assess the impacts of emotion, social rewards, and social context on decision making. Then, we follow up with how individual differences impact choices and new exciting developments in the prediction and neuroforecasting of future decisions. Finally, we consider how trends in decision-neuroscience research reflect progress toward resolving past challenges, discuss new and exciting applications of recent research, and identify new challenges for the field. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making Psychology > Emotion and Motivation.

Using network models in person-centered care in psychiatry: How perspectivism could help to draw boundaries

In this paper, we explore the conceptual problems that arise when using network analysis in person-centered care (PCC) in psychiatry. Personalized network models are potentially helpful tools for PCC, but we argue that using them in psychiatric practice raises boundary problems, i.e., problems in demarcating what should and should not be included in the model, which may limit their ability to provide clinically-relevant knowledge. Models can have explanatory and representational boundaries, among others. We argue that perspectival reasoning can make more explicit what questions personalized network models can address in PCC, given their boundaries.

Elevating neuroscience literacy and an approach for physiologists

The field of neuroscience has made notable strides that have contributed to progress and change in a number of academic pursuits. However, the lack of understanding of basic neuroscience concepts among the general public is likely to hinder, and in some instances possibly even prevent, the appropriate application of scientific advancements to issues facing society today. Greater neuroscience literacy among the general public is necessary for the benefits of neuroscientific discovery to be fully realized. By actively enhancing neuroscience literacy, scientists can dispel falsehoods established by early research that harmed underrepresented communities, ensure that public conversations concerning neuroscience (e.g., legalization of psychotropic substances) revolve around facts, and empower individuals to make better health decisions. The widespread implementation of communication technologies and various forms of media indicate there are numerous means to engage classroom learners across disciplines and age cohorts and the public to increase neuroscience knowledge. Thus, it is not only necessary but timely that neuroscientists seek meaningful ways to bridge the widening knowledge gap with the public.

Persuasive Features of Scientific Explanations: Explanatory Schemata of Physical and Psychosocial Phenomena

Explanations are central to understanding the causal relationships between entities within the environment. Instead of examining basic heuristics and schemata that inform the acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations, recent studies have predominantly examined complex explanatory models. In the present study, we examined which essential features of explanatory schemata can account for phenomena that are attributed to domain-specific knowledge. In two experiments, participants judged the validity of logical syllogisms and reported confidence in their response. In addition to validity of the explanations, we manipulated whether scientists or people explained an animate or inanimate phenomenon using mechanistic (e.g., force, cause) or intentional explanatory terms (e.g., believes, wants). Results indicate that intentional explanations were generally considered to be less valid than mechanistic explanations and that 'scientists' were relatively more reliable sources of information of inanimate phenomena whereas 'people' were relatively more reliable sources of information of animate phenomena. Moreover, after controlling for participants' performance, we found that they expressed greater overconfidence for valid intentional and invalid mechanistic explanations suggesting that the effect of belief-bias is greater in these conditions.

Neurodualism: People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain

People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism. At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind-brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that "a change in a person's brain" is accompanied by "a change in the person's mind" more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that "future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person's brain," participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person's mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios. By uncovering people's intuitive theories of the mind-brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments.

"Learning to Listen to Them and Ask the Right Questions." Bennet Omalu, Scientific Objectivities, and the Witnessing of a Concussion Crisis

The death of American Football player Mike Webster has become foundational to narratives of sport's twenty-first century concussion crisis. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who conducted Webster's autopsy and subsequently diagnosed Webster with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), has, likewise, become a central figure in the concussion crisis. Indeed, it is frequently argued that there is something about Omalu in particular that made it possible for him to "witness" CTE when the disease entity had hitherto remained invisible to a great many medics and scientists. In this article, and drawing upon auto/biographies, I consider Omalu's self-described mode of scientific witnessing which purportedly allowed him to (re)discover CTE. I find Omalu's described objectivity to be shaped by three factors: First, the importance of "trained judgment" within which Omalu's scientific training is emphasized. Second, the infusion of religiosity within scientific practice. Third, a self-described position as an "outsider" to both football and American culture. Throughout this analysis, I pay attention not only to the ways in which Omalu's narratives depart from conventional depictions of scientific objectivity; I also note the similarities with particular bodies of social scientific work, most notably within a feminist "turn to care" in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and related standpoint epistemologies. Following these analyses, I argue that, first, Omalu's writing affords the dead a "response-ability" that is often absent within analyses of the concussion crisis and, second, that a focus upon diverse forms of objectivity, such as those described in Omalu's work, complements existing work into concussion science that has foregrounded scientific conflict of interest.

The Neuroscientification of Psychology: The Rising Prevalence of Neuroscientific Concepts in Psychology From 1965 to 2016

The apparent convergence of psychology and brain science has been the subject of both celebration and critique, but it has never been systematically charted. We examined historical trends in the representation of neuroscientific concepts in a corpus of 798,402 psychology journal articles published over the past half century, from 1965 to 2016. A dictionary of 522 uniquely neuroscience-related terms was developed, and the percentage of article abstracts in which at least one term appeared was calculated for each year. This percentage grew from 9.15% to 16.45% over the study period, whereas the percentage containing a subset of 199 terms containing the prefix "neur-" rose much more steeply, from 2.30% to 10.06%. From the mid-1970s, the growing representation of neuroscience in psychology was linear. Proportions were highest among journals covering neuropsychology and physiological psychology and behavioral neuroscience, lowest in those covering social psychology and developmental and educational psychology, and intermediate in those covering experimental and cognitive psychology and clinical psychology. The steepest rises were found in social and clinical psychology journals. Changes in the most salient neuroscientific terms revealed historical shifts in technology, topic, and anatomical focus, which may contribute to our understanding of relationships among mind, brain, and behavior.

Bordering on crisis: A qualitative analysis of focus group, social media, and news media perspectives on the Republic of Ireland-Northern Ireland border during the 'first wave' of the COVID-19 pandemic

RATIONALE

International border controls were among the earliest and most effective of measures to constrain transmission of COVID-19. However, such measures are complex when established borders are open yet politically contested, as for the border that divides the Republic of Ireland (ROI) from Northern Ireland (NI). Understanding how this border affected the everyday lives of both populations during the pandemic is important for informing the continued development of effective responses to COVID-19 and future health crises.

OBJECTIVE

This multi-methods study aimed to explore public perspectives on how the ROI-NI border affected experiences of and responses to the 'first wave' of the pandemic.

METHOD

The study collated data from focus groups (n = 8), news articles (n = 967), and Twitter posts (n = 356) on the island of Ireland, which mentioned the ROI-NI border in relation to COVID-19. Thematic analysis was used to explore the range of perspectives on the role played by the border during the early months of the pandemic.

RESULTS

Analysis identified three themes: Cross-Border Interdependencies illustrated the complexity and challenges of living near the border; Interpretations of Cross-Border Policy Disparities showed that lay publics perceived NI and ROI policy approaches as discordant and politicised; and Responses to Cross-Border Policy Disparities revealed alternating calls to either strengthen border controls, or pursue a unified all-island approach.

CONCLUSIONS

Results reveal clear public appetite for greater synchronisation of cross-border pandemic responses, emphasise the specific vulnerability of communities living near the border, and highlight the risk of long-term socio-political repercussions of border management decisions taken during the pandemic. Findings will inform implementation of pandemic responses and public health policies in jurisdictions that share a porous land border.

Concerns in the Blurred Divisions between Medical and Consumer Neurotechnology

Neurotechnology has traditionally been central to the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. While these devices have initially been utilized in clinical and research settings, recent advancements in neurotechnology have yielded devices that are more portable, user-friendly, and less expensive. These improvements allow laypeople to monitor their brain waves and interface their brains with external devices. Such improvements have led to the rise of wearable neurotechnology that is marketed to the consumer. While many of the consumer devices are marketed for innocuous applications, such as use in video games, there is potential for them to be repurposed for medical use. How do we manage neurotechnologies that skirt the line between medical and consumer applications and what can be done to ensure consumer safety? Here, we characterize neurotechnology based on medical and consumer applications and summarize currently marketed uses of consumer-grade wearable headsets. We lay out concerns that may arise due to the similar claims associated with both medical and consumer devices, the possibility of consumer devices being repurposed for medical uses, and the potential for medical uses of neurotechnology to influence commercial markets related to employment and self-enhancement.

A cross-sectional study of neuromyths among teachers in a Caribbean nation

BACKGROUND

The current COVID-19 pandemic and proliferation of misinformation regarding science highlights the importance of improving general science literacy. The continued preponderance of neuromyths among educators is of concern, especially in lower- and middle-income countries.

METHOD

Using an adapted questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among teachers in a small island developing state in the Caribbean.

RESULTS

Two-thirds of the sample were unable to recognise at least 50% of the myths. Regression analysis demonstrated that higher scores in brain knowledge and exposure to prior teacher-training increased belief in neuromyths. On the other hand, specific in-service training pertaining to educational neuroscience improved scores.

CONCLUSION

Neuromyths are prevalent among teachers and appear to inform their teaching practice. Further research needs to be conducted to explore not just the prevalence of these myths but in what ways they may be impacting teaching and learning outcomes in the classroom.

"Mombrain and Sticky DNA": The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities

The fields of epigenetics and neuroscience have come to occupy a significant place in individual and public life in biomedicalized societies. Social scientists have argued that the primacy and popularization of the "neuro" has begun to shape how patients and other lay people experience themselves and their lifeworlds in increasingly neurological and genetic terms. Pregnant women and new mothers have become an important new target for cutting edge neuroscientific and epigenetic research, with the Internet constituting a highly active space for engagement with knowledge translations. In this paper, we analyze the reception by women in North America of translations of nascent epigenetic and neuroscientific research. We conducted three focus groups with pregnant women and new mothers. The study was informed by a prior scoping investigation of online content. Our focus group findings record how engagement with translations of epigenetic and neuroscientific research impact women's perinatal experience, wellbeing, and self-construal. Three themes emerged in our analysis: (1) A kind of brain; (2) The looping effects of biomedical narratives; (3) Imprints of past experience and the management of the future. This data reveals how mothers engage with the neurobiological style-of-thought increasingly characteristic of public health and popular science messaging around pregnancy and motherhood. Through the molecularization of pregnancy and child development, a typical passage of life becomes saturated with "susceptibility," "risk," and the imperative to preemptively make "healthy' choices." This, in turn, redefines and shapes the experience of what it is to be a "good," "healthy," or "responsible" mother/to-be.

Uncertainty Promotes Neuroreductionism: A Behavioral Online Study on Folk Psychological Causal Inference from Neuroimaging Data

INTRODUCTION

Increased efforts in neuroscience try to understand mental disorders as brain disorders. In the present study, we investigate how common a neuroreductionist inclination is among highly educated people. In particular, we shed light on implicit presuppositions of mental disorders little is known about in the public, exemplified here by the case of body integrity dysphoria (BID) that is considered a mental disorder for the first time in ICD-11.

METHODS

Identically graphed, simulated data of mind-brain correlations were shown in 3 contexts with presumably different presumptions about causality. 738 highly educated lay people rated plausibility of causality attribution from the brain to mind and from mind to the brain for correlations between brain structural properties and mental phenomena. We contrasted participants' plausibility ratings of causality in the contexts of commonly perceived brain lesion-induced behavior (aphasia), behavior-induced training effects (piano playing), and a newly described mental disorder (BID).

RESULTS

The findings reveal the expected context-dependent modulation of causality attributions in the contexts of aphasia and piano playing. Furthermore, we observed a significant tendency to more readily attribute causal inference from the brain to mind than vice versa with respect to BID.

CONCLUSION

In some contexts, exemplified here by aphasia and piano playing, unidirectional causality attributions may be justified. However, with respect to BID, we critically discuss presumably unjustified neuroreductionist inclinations under causal uncertainty. Finally, we emphasize the need for a presupposition-free approach in psychiatry.

Narrative Devices: Neurotechnologies, Information, and Self-Constitution

This article provides a conceptual and normative framework through which we may understand the potentially ethically significant roles that information generated by neurotechnologies about our brains and minds may play in our construction of our identities. Neuroethics debates currently focus disproportionately on the ways that third parties may (ab)use these kinds of information. These debates occlude interests we may have in whether and how we ourselves encounter information about our own brains and minds. This gap is not yet adequately addressed by most allusions in the literature to potential identity impacts. These lack the requisite conceptual or normative foundations to explain why we should be concerned about such effects or how they might be addressed. This article seeks to fill this gap by presenting a normative account of identity as constituted by embodied self-narratives. It proposes that information generated by neurotechnologies can play significant content-supplying and interpretive roles in our construction of our self-narratives. It argues, to the extent that these roles support and detract from the coherence and inhabitability of these narratives, access to information about our brains and minds engages non-trivial identity-related interests. These claims are illustrated using examples drawn from empirical literature reporting reactions to information generated by implantable predictive BCIs and psychiatric neuroimaging. The article concludes by highlighting ways in which information generated by neurotechnologies might be governed so as to protect information subjects' interests in developing and inhabiting their own identities.

Placebo Brain Stimulation Affects Subjective but Not Neurocognitive Measures of Error Processing

The aim of this preregistered EEG study was to show how expectations about enhanced or impaired performance through transcranial stimulation affect feelings of agency and error processing. Using a single-blind experimental design, participants (N = 57) were attached to a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) device, and in different blocks, they were verbally instructed to expect enhanced or impaired cognitive performance, or no effects of the brain stimulation. In all cases, but unbeknownst to the participants, we used an inert sham tDCS protocol. Subsequently, we measured their response to errors on a cognitive control task. Our expectancy manipulation was successful: participants reported improved subjective performance in the enhancement compared with the impairment condition—even though objective performance was kept at a constant level across conditions. Participants reported the highest feelings of agency over their task performance in the control condition, and lowest feelings of agency in the impairment condition. The expectancy manipulation did not affect the error-related negativity (ERN) in association with incorrect responses. During the induction phase, expecting impaired versus enhanced performance increased frontal theta power, potentially reflecting a process of increased cognitive control allocation. Our findings show that verbally induced manipulations can affect subjective performance on a cognitive control task, but that stronger manipulations (e.g., through conditioning) are necessary to induce top-down effects on neural error processing.

Neuroenhancement as Instrumental Drug Use: Putting the Debate in a Different Frame

The use of performance-enhancing drugs to study or work better is often called "cognitive enhancement" or "neuroenhancement" and sparked a debate between scholars from many disciplines. I argue that such behavior can better be subsumed under the more general category of "instrumental drug use". This broader perspective allows understanding neuroenhancement better from the perspective of addiction medicine and public health and supports a more consistent drug policy. I also summarize the most important systematic reviews and individual surveys of nonmedical substance use to study or work better. Different definitions and methodologies limit the comparability of these studies. The unified approach of drug instrumentalization would partially solve such problems. Finally, prevalence studies from the 1960s to 1980s as well as anecdotal evidence since the late 19th century show that instrumental drug use is and has been for a long time a common phenomenon. It should thus also be investigated and treated accordingly.

Beyond black and white: heibaika, neuroparenting, and lay neuroscience

Heibaika (Mandarin for black-and-white cards) are tools that Taiwanese parents use for infants below 3 months old. These cards are claimed to stimulate vision and enhance the brain. Although the scientific efficacy of heibaika is questionable, the wide circulation of these cards illustrates the ways some try to urge laypeople to imagine and picture the infant brain. Thus, the use of heibaika constitutes a good example of neuroparenting and neuroculture, where flourishing neuroscience transforms the parenting culture. In the present study, multiple methodologies are applied, and the emergence of heibaika is identified as a twenty-first century phenomenon popularised by online forums and postpartum care centres, among many other channels. Heibaika are contextualised in the globalisation of neuroparenting through translation since the 1990s and the rising anxiety of contemporary Taiwanese parents. Through interview analysis, parents are classified into believers, sceptics, and cautious experimenters. Their anticipations and worries are further elaborated. The paper concludes by highlighting its three major contributions: the importance of studying lay neuroscience as a way to rethink and problematise the boundary between science and culture, the enrichment of the concept of neuroparenting, and the emphasis on the dimension of globalisation and knowledge transmission.

Making a murderer: Media renderings of brain injury and Aaron Hernandez as a medical and sporting subject

This paper examines the entanglement of medicine, brain injury, and subjectivity within newspaper discourse and through the case of ex-American footballer Aaron Hernandez. In 2017, two years after being found guilty of murder and five years after scoring in the Super Bowl, Aaron Hernandez died by suicide in his prison cell. Hernandez was posthumously diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease associated with violence, depression, and dementia-like symptoms. I examine newspaper coverage of the Hernandez case, focusing upon the murder, arrests, conviction, suicide, and diagnosis of CTE in order to examine understandings of Hernandez's subjectivity. I make three conclusions: First, the disease is not mentioned prior to diagnosis with family instability, friendship groups, individual psychology, and the entitlement of celebrity foregrounded. Second, CTE is foregrounded after the diagnosis and is used to explain much of Hernandez's behaviour. Third, the diagnosis of CTE goes someway to normalizing the behaviour of Hernandez, rendering his behaviours comprehensible. I conclude by considering how the specific narrative of CTE-as-acquired-dementia shapes depictions of Hernandez's subjectivity and discuss how this case troubles existing literatures on the neurologization of selfhood.

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CTE is a neurodegenerative disease popularly associated with contact sport.

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Aaron Hernandez was convicted of murder, died by suicide, and diagnosed with CTE.

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Through media analysis, I ask if Hernandez's actions were seen as shaped by CTE.

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CTE is not mentioned prior to suicide and rarely prior to formal diagnosis.

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After diagnosis CTE is used to explain and normalize much of Hernandez's behaviour.

Responsible Research and Innovation as a Novel Approach to Guide Educational Impact of Mind, Brain, and Education Research

We propose a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) framework to improve the alignment between mind, brain, and education (MBE) research, the educational practice, and other societal stakeholders. RRI is an approach that has successfully been used in different research fields, but not yet in MBE research. After substantiating the need for, and possibilities of using this framework within MBE research, we report a case study to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of RRI within an MBE context. This case study entails developing an educational intervention to improve learners' sense of agency regarding their own learning processes using neurofeedback. Using RRI, we found that societal stakeholders (teenagers, parents, and teachers) anticipate different potential impacts of this neurotechnology-based intervention than researchers did, enabling us to adapt the intervention according to these perspectives. This example demonstrates that RRI enables researchers to be reflexive and responsive to the stakeholders needs and values, to ultimately improve the educational and societal value of MBE research.

Transmission of disorder and etiological information: Effects on health knowledge recollection and health-related cognition

Biased transmission of health knowledge has far-reaching effects on information reproduction and health-related cognitions. We examined whether transmissions of different types of disorder and etiological information influence recollections of health knowledge and evaluations of patients, by simulating the digital transmission of information. Transmission chains of four non-interacting persons (i.e., four generations) were formed. The first generation read three vignettes describing fictitious patients with one of three disorders (physiological, psychological, culture-bound) uniquely paired with one of three etiologies (genetic, environmental, unknown etiology). Next, they evaluated patients’ well-being, rated desired social distance, and recalled the vignettes. These written recollections replaced the original vignettes for a second-generation of participants, whose recollections were used for the third generation and so on. The framing of disorders affected recollections of etiology, in which culture-bound framings resulted in the poorest recall of etiologies. Participants also perceived the culture-bound disorder as the least serious but desired the most social distance from patients diagnosed with it, when compared to other disorders. The study showed that health information is selectively attended to and reproduced, possibly affected by perceived self-relevance. Faulty recollections and framing of disorders affect health cognitions, potentially instigating biased transmission of disorder- and patient-related narratives.

Crianças, seus cérebros... e além: Reflexões em torno de uma ética feminista de pesquisa

Resumo: Nesse artigo, em interlocução com autores dos estudos da ciência assim como das teorias feministas de cuidado, reflito sobre dilemas éticos associados à participação do cientista social na arena multidisciplinar das políticas públicas. Construo meu objeto de análise a partir de uma imagem que surge com frequência nos debates sobre políticas de proteção à infância que justapõe dois cérebros infantis -- um etiquetado “normal”, o outro, “negligência extrema”. Ao rastrear, através de atores e situações concretos, a trajetória pouco ortodoxa desse artefato das neurociências, proponho reforçar uma visão crítica sobre os usos populares da ciência que tendem a ofuscar os juízes de valor implícitos em qualquer fato científico. Por outro lado, num exercício autorreflexivo, procuro entender como o “importar-se” da pesquisadora, nas suas diversas manifestações, tem implicações para o devir ético e político dos mundos sob consideração.

Neuroscientific explanations and the stigma of mental disorder: a meta-analytic study

Genetic and other biological explanations appear to have mixed blessings for the stigma of mental disorder. Meta-analytic evidence shows that these “biogenetic” explanations reduce the blame attached to sufferers, but they also increase aversion, perceptions of dangerousness, and pessimism about recovery. These relationships may arise because biogenetic explanations recruit essentialist intuitions, which have known associations with prejudice and the endorsement of stereotypes. However, the adverse implications of biogenetic explanations as a set may not hold true for the subset of those explanations that invoke neurobiological causes. Neurobiological explanations might have less adverse implications for stigma than genetic explanations, for example, because they are arguably less essentialist. Although this possibility is important for evaluating the social implications of neuroscientific explanations of mental health problems, it has yet to be tested meta-analytically. We present meta-analyses of links between neurobiological explanations and multiple dimensions of stigma in 26 correlational and experimental studies. In correlational studies, neurobiological explanations were marginally associated with greater desire for social distance from people with mental health problems. In experimental studies, these explanations were associated with greater desire for social distance, greater perceived dangerousness, and greater prognostic pessimism. Neurobiological explanations were not linked to reduced blame in either set of studies. By implication, neurobiological explanations have the same adverse links to stigma as other forms of biogenetic explanation. These findings raise troubling implications about the public impact of psychiatric neuroscience research findings. Although such findings are not intrinsically stigmatizing, they may become so when viewed through the lens of neuroessentialism.

The Teenage Brain: Public Perceptions of Neurocognitive Development during Adolescence

Over the past decade, important insights have been obtained into the neurocognitive development during adolescence. To better understand how these neuroscientific insights impact the real world, we investigated how neuroscience has shaped public perceptions of the "teenage brain" and if these perceptions influence adolescent behavior. When asking to generate free associations with the word "teenage brain," adolescents ( n = 363, M_age = 14.47 years) and parents ( n = 164, M_age = 47.16 years) more often mention undesirable behaviors (e.g., "irresponsible") than desirable behaviors (e.g., "creative"). Despite these dominantly negative associations, priming adolescents with positively versus negatively framed statements about adolescent brain development did not influence their subsequent risk-taking, impulsivity, and performance on response-to-failure tasks. However, we did find a more nuanced effect, related to how much adolescents agreed with the negative versus positive priming statements: Adolescents' negative beliefs about adolescent brain development reinforced negative behaviors by increased risk-taking behaviors, and adolescents' positive beliefs reinforced positive behaviors by using positive strategies to cope with academic setbacks. The current findings underline the impact of views that build up over time and that these are not easily influenced by a one-time instance of information but rather reinforce the impact of new information. To prevent negative perceptions of the teenage brain from becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, it is important that communication about adolescent neurocognitive development is framed in a more balanced way. Neuroscientists need to be more aware of how their research impacts the real world, before we are fully ready for "real-world neuroscience."

Readability of the 100 Most-Cited Neuroimaging Papers Assessed by Common Readability Formulae

Background: From time to time, neuroimaging research findings receive press coverage and attention by the general public. Scientific articles therefore should be written in a readable manner to facilitate knowledge translation and dissemination. However, no published readability report on neuroimaging articles like those published in education, medical and marketing journals is available. As a start, this study therefore aimed to evaluate the readability of the most-cited neuroimaging articles.

Methods: The 100 most-cited articles in neuroimaging identified in a recent study by Kim et al. (2016) were evaluated. Headings, mathematical equations, tables, figures, footnotes, appendices, and reference lists were trimmed from the articles. The rest was processed for number of characters, words and sentences. Five readability indices that indicate the school grade appropriate for that reading difficulty (Automated Readability Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog index and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook index) were computed. An average reading grade level (AGL) was calculated by taking the mean of these five indices. The Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score was also computed. The readability of the trimmed abstracts and full texts was evaluated against number of authors, country of corresponding author, total citation count, normalized citation count, article type, publication year, impact factor of the year published and type of journal.

Results: Mean AGL ± standard deviation (SD) of the trimmed abstracts and full texts were 17.15 ± 2.81 (college graduate level) and 14.22 ± 1.66 (college level) respectively. Mean FRE score ± SD of the abstracts and full texts were 15.70 ± 14.11 (college graduate level) and 32.11 ± 8.56 (college level) respectively. Both items indicated that the full texts were significantly more readable than the abstracts (p < 0.001). Abstract readability was not associated with any factors under investigation. ANCOVAs showed that review/meta-analysis (mean AGL ± SD: 16.0 ± 1.4) and higher impact factor significantly associated with lower readability of the trimmed full texts surveyed.

Conclusion: Concerning the 100 most-cited articles in neuroimaging, the full text appears to be more readable than the abstracts. Experimental articles and methodology papers were more readable than reviews/meta-analyses. Articles published in journals with higher impact factors were less readable.

"Your Brain Matters": Issues of Risk and Responsibility in Online Dementia Prevention Information

The Internet has been argued to provide diverse sites for health communication and promotion, including issues that constitute major public health priorities such as the prevention of dementia. In this study, discursive psychology is used to examine how information about dementia risk prevention was presented on the websites of the most prominent English-language, nonprofit dementia organizations. We demonstrate how information about dementia risk and its prevention positions audiences as at-risk of developing dementia and constructs preventive behavior as a matter of individual responsibility. Websites represented participation in certain lifestyle practices as normative and emphasized audience members' personal responsibility for managing dementia risk. It is argued that such representations promote a moral identity in regard to brain health in which an ethic of self-responsibility is central. The implications of such identity construction in a context of increasing prevalence of dementia diagnosis are discussed.

A Translational Framework of Educational Neuroscience in Learning Disorders

Neuroimaging has undergone enormous progress during the last two and a half decades. The combination of neuroscientific methods and educational practice has become a focus of interdisciplinary research in order to answer more applied questions. In this realm, conditions that hamper learning success and have deleterious effects in the population - such as learning disorders (LD) - could especially profit from neuroimaging findings. At the moment, however, there is an ongoing debate about how far neuroscientific research can go to inform the practical work in educational settings. Here, we put forward a theoretical translational framework as a method of conducting neuroimaging and bridging it to education, with a main focus on dyscalculia and dyslexia. Our work seeks to represent a theoretical but mainly empirical guide on the benefits of neuroimaging, which can help people working with different aspects of LD, who need to act collaboratively to reach the full potential of neuroimaging. We provide possible ideas regarding how neuroimaging can inform LD at different levels within our multidirectional framework, i.e., mechanisms, diagnosis/prognosis, training/intervention, and community/education. In addition, we discuss methodological, conceptual, and structural limitations that need to be addressed by future research.

Centre/ing decolonial feminist psychology in Africa

Psychology as a discipline has historically served the interests of dominant groups in society. By contrast, contemporary trends in psychological work have emerged as a direct result of the impact of violent histories of slavery, genocide and colonisation. Hence, we propose that psychology, particularly in its social forms, as a discipline centred on the relationship between mind and society, is well placed to produce the critical knowledge and tools for imagining and promoting just and equitable social relationships and social structures. Starting with an overview of the historical assumptions of the discipline that served to legitimate systems of slavery, colonisation and apartheid, this article then introduces a framework for centring decolonial, feminist ways of doing psychological work with a focus on the particularities of the African context. We argue that a decolonial feminist approach to psychology curricula and psychological research is necessary for the discipline to remain relevant in contemporary African contexts.

Did I Do That? Expectancy Effects of Brain Stimulation on Error-related Negativity and Sense of Agency

This study examines the effects of expected transcranial stimulation on the error(-related) negativity (Ne or ERN) and the sense of agency in participants who perform a cognitive control task. Placebo transcranial direct current stimulation was used to elicit expectations of transcranially induced cognitive improvement or impairment. The improvement/impairment manipulation affected both the Ne/ERN and the sense of agency (i.e., whether participants attributed errors to oneself or the brain stimulation device): Expected improvement increased the ERN in response to errors compared with both impairment and control conditions. Expected impairment made participants falsely attribute errors to the transcranial stimulation. This decrease in sense of agency was correlated with a reduced ERN amplitude. These results show that expectations about transcranial stimulation impact users' neural response to self-generated errors and the attribution of responsibility-especially when actions lead to negative outcomes. We discuss our findings in relation to predictive processing theory according to which the effect of prior expectations on the ERN reflects the brain's attempt to generate predictive models of incoming information. By demonstrating that induced expectations about transcranial stimulation can have effects at a neural level, that is, beyond mere demand characteristics, our findings highlight the potential for placebo brain stimulation as a promising tool for research.

How Realistic Are the Scientific Assumptions of the Neuroenhancement Debate? Assessing the Pharmacological Optimism and Neuroenhancement Prevalence Hypotheses

Since two decades, neuroenhancement is a major topic in neuroethics and still receives much attention in the scholarly literature as well as in public media. In contrast to high hopes at the beginning of the “Decade of the Brain” in the United States and Europe that we subsume under the “pharmacological optimism hypothesis,” recent evidence from clinical neuroscience suggests that developing drugs that make healthy people smarter is even more difficult than finding new treatments for patients with mental disorders. However, cognitive enhancing drugs even for patients with impaired intellectual performance have not been successfully developed yet and new drugs that might have a disruptive impact on this field are unlikely to be developed in the near future. Additionally, we discuss theoretical, empirical, and historical evidence to assess whether cognitive enhancement of the healthy is common or even epidemic and if its application will further increase in the near future, as suggested by the “neuroenhancement prevalence hypothesis.” Reports, surveys, and reviews from the 1930s until today indicate that psychopharmacological neuroenhancement is a fact but less common than often stated, particularly in the public media. Non-medical use of psychostimulants for the purpose of cognitive enhancement exists since at least 80 years and it might actually have been more common in the past than today. Therefore, we conclude that the pharmacological optimism hypothesis and neuroenhancement prevalence hypotheses have to be rejected and argue that the neuroenhancement debate should take the available evidence more into account.

The Social Context of "Do-It-Yourself" Brain Stimulation: Neurohackers, Biohackers, and Lifehackers

The "do-it-yourself" (DIY) brain stimulation movement began in earnest in late 2011, when lay individuals began building stimulation devices and applying low levels of electricity to their heads for self-improvement purposes. To date, scholarship on the home use of brain stimulation has focused on characterizing the practices of users via quantitative and qualitative studies, and on analyzing related ethical and regulatory issues. In this perspective piece, however, I take the opposite approach: rather than viewing the home use of brain stimulation on its own, I argue that it must be understood within the context of other DIY and citizen science movements. Seen in this light, the home use of brain stimulation is only a small part of the "neurohacking" movement, which is comprised of individuals attempting to optimize their brains to achieve enhanced performance. Neurohacking itself is an offshoot of the "life hacking" (or "quantified self") movement, in which individuals self-track minute aspects of their daily lives in order to enhance productivity or performance. Additionally, the home or DIY use of brain stimulation is in many ways parallel to the DIY Biology (or "biohacking") movement, which seeks to democratize tools of scientific experimentation. Here, I describe the place of the home use of brain stimulation with regard to neurohackers, lifehackers, and biohackers, and suggest that a policy approach for the home use of brain stimulation should have an appreciation both of individual motivations as well as the broader social context of the movement itself.

Neuroscience Fiction as Eidolá: Social Reflection and Neuroethical Obligations in Depictions of Neuroscience in Film

Neuroscience and neurotechnology are increasingly being employed to assess and alter cognition, emotions, and behaviors, and the knowledge and implications of neuroscience have the potential to radically affect, if not redefine, notions of what constitutes humanity, the human condition, and the "self." Such capability renders neuroscience a compelling theme that is becoming ubiquitous in literary and cinematic fiction. Such neuro-SciFi (or "NeuroS/F") may be seen as eidolá: a created likeness that can either accurately-or superficially, in a limited way-represent that which it depicts. Such eidolá assume discursive properties implicitly, as emotionally salient references for responding to cultural events and technological objects reminiscent of fictional portrayal; and explicitly, through characters and plots that consider the influence of neurotechnological advances from various perspectives. We argue that in this way, neuroS/F eidolá serve as allegorical discourse on sociopolitical or cultural phenomena, have power to restructure technological constructs, and thereby alter the trajectory of technological development. This fosters neuroethical responsibility for monitoring neuroS/F eidolá and the sociocultural context from which-and into which-the ideas of eidolá are projected. We propose three approaches to this: evaluating reciprocal effects of imaginary depictions on real-world neurotechnological development; tracking changing sociocultural expectations of neuroscience and its uses; and analyzing the actual process of social interpretation of neuroscience to reveal shifts in heuristics, ideas, and attitudes. Neuroethicists are further obliged to engage with other discourse actors about neuroS/F interpretations to ensure that meanings assigned to neuroscientific advances are well communicated and more fully appreciated.

Neuroscience-Inspired Design: From Academic Neuromarketing to Commercially Relevant Research

Companies and organizations the world over wish to understand, predict, and ultimately change the behavior of those whom they interact with, advise, or else provide services for: be it the accident-prone driver out on the roads, the shopper bombarded by a myriad of alternative products on the supermarket shelf, or the growing proportion of the population who are clinically obese. The hope is that by understanding more about the mind, using recent advances in neuroscience, more effective interventions can be designed. But just what insights can a neuroscience-inspired approach offer over-and-above more traditional, not to mention contemporary, behavioral methods? This article focuses on three key areas: neuroergonomics, neuromarketing, and neurogastronomy. The utility of the neuroscience-inspired approach is illustrated with a number of concrete real-world examples. Practical challenges with commercial neuromarketing research, including the cost, timing, ethics/legality and access to scanners (in certain countries), and the limited ecological validity of the situations in which people are typically tested are also discussed. This commentary highlights a number of the key challenges associated with translating academic neuroscience research into commercial neuromarketing applications.

Responsible Reporting: Neuroimaging News in the Age of Responsible Research and Innovation

Besides offering opportunities in both clinical and non-clinical domains, the application of novel neuroimaging technologies raises pressing dilemmas. 'Responsible Research and Innovation' (RRI) aims to stimulate research and innovation activities that take ethical and social considerations into account from the outset. We previously identified that Dutch neuroscientists interpret "responsible innovation" as educating the public on neuroimaging technologies via the popular press. Their aim is to mitigate (neuro)hype, an aim shared with the wider emerging RRI community. Here, we present results of a media-analysis undertaken to establish whether the body of articles in the Dutch popular press presents balanced conversations on neuroimaging research to the public. We found that reporting was mostly positive and framed in terms of (healthcare) progress. There was rarely a balance between technology opportunities and limitations, and even fewer articles addressed societal or ethical aspects of neuroimaging research. Furthermore, neuroimaging metaphors seem to favour oversimplification. Current reporting is therefore more likely to enable hype than to mitigate it. How can neuroscientists, given their self-ascribed social responsibility, address this conundrum? We make a case for a collective and shared responsibility among neuroscientists, journalists and other stakeholders, including funders, committed to responsible reporting on neuroimaging research.