Joelle M. Abi-Rached

The birth of the neuromolecular gaze.

The aim of this article is (1) to investigate the ‘neurosciences’ as an object of study for historical and genealogical approaches and (2) to characterize what we identify as a particular ‘style of thought’ that consolidated with the birth of this new thought community and that we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’. This article argues that while there is a long history of research on the brain, the neurosciences formed in the 1960s, in a socio-historical context characterized by political change, faith in scientific and technological progress, and the rise of a molecular gaze in the life sciences. They flourished in part because these epistemological and technological developments were accompanied by multiple projects of institution-building. An array of stakeholders was mobilized around the belief that breakthroughs in understanding the brain were not only crucial, they were possible by means of collaborative efforts, cross-disciplinary approaches and the use of a predominantly reductionist neuromolecular method. The first part of the article considers some of the different approaches that have been adopted to writing the history of the brain sciences. After a brief outline of our own approach, the second part of the article uses this in a preliminary exploration of the birth of the neurosciences in three contexts. We conclude by arguing that the 1960s constitute an important ‘break’ in the long path of the history of the brain sciences that needs further analysis. We believe this epistemological shift we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’ will shape the future intellectual development and social role of the neurosciences.

The Implications of the New Brain Sciences

In November 2007, seven neuroscientists and political consultants published an opinion‐editorial (op‐ed) article in the New York Times in which they made predictions about how swing voters would react to the candidates in the Democratic and Republican Primaries for the US Presidency (Iacoboni et al , 2007). The intriguing aspect of their predictions was that the authors had used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the response of their test subjects’ brains to videos and photographs of Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and the other candidates. On the basis of which areas of the brain showed increased or decreased activity, the scientists determined how each person had reacted and deduced the acceptability of the Primary candidates to undecided voters in general. But, perhaps most intriguingly, none of this research had been—or has been—published in a peer‐reviewed journal. > …neuroscience has become ‘big science’, in so far as it is now of interest to the public Three days later, the New York Times published a letter from 17 neuroscientists from the USA and Europe who were critical of both the conclusions of Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California Los Angeles, USA, and his co‐authors, and the way in which the experiment was published (Aron et al , 2007). “As cognitive neuroscientists, we are very excited about the potential use of brain imaging technology to better understand the psychology of political decisions. But we are distressed by the publication of research in the press that has not undergone peer review, and that uses flawed reasoning to draw unfounded conclusions about topics as important as the presidential election,” the authors wrote. It also turned out that the predictions in the op‐ed piece were not that good: “Barack Obama and John McCain have work to do,” Iacoboni and the other authors had …

From brain to neuro: the brain research association and the making of British neuroscience, 1965-1996.

This article explores the short history of “neuroscience” as a discipline in its own right as opposed to the much longer past of the brain sciences. It focuses on one historical moment, the formation of the first British “neuroscience” society, the Brain Research Association (BRA), renamed in 1996 to the British Neuroscience Association (BNA). It outlines the new thinking brought about by this new science of brain, mind, and behavior, it sketches the beginnings of the BRA and the institutionalization of neuroscience in the British context, and it further explores the ambiguous relation the association had towards some of the ethical, social, and political implications of this new area of research.

Post-war mental health, wealth and justice

The paper launches a normative debate on an under-assessed health policy problem, namely post-war mental health. It explores its ethical dimensions and argues for a strong moral claim to invest in it as a form of reparation that must be added to the jus post-bellum’s truncated list of recommendations. Many countries are currently involved in armed conflict and many more still recovering from past wars. These generally belong to the low-to-middle income group that spend minimally on social and health expenditures.The problem worsens post-war for these countries are burdened with an increased prevalence of mental health disorders with far-reaching repercussions. Failure to recognize in particular war-related psychosocial sequels could weaken capacity to recover and may contribute to a nation’s socio-political unrest that could perpetuate throughout generations. The paper argues that reconstructing war-torn societies should be achieved by rebuilding first and foremost the shattered individual. Policy-makers have a stronger positive obligation to invest in post-war mental health because of a shared responsibility for the harm inflicted. This consequently means a shared responsibility in building a sustainable and viable post-war ‘minimally just state’.The paper draws on Pogge’s ‘relational conceptions of justice’ and the concept of‘shared responsibility’ used in contemporary environmental discourses. It challenges the old paradigmatic model of the just-war tradition which views the world as an archipelagos of well-delineated, self-contained and atomized actors. It also aims to set the stage for an ‘ethics of post-war mental health’ in line with what Ricoeur calls ‘an ethics of memory’.

Authors' Response: Of Founding Fathers and History

Underlying Balazs and Reynoldss “Letter to the Editor” (2013) is a frustration with the lack of an explicit acknowledgment of Derek Richter as the “founder” of the Brain Research Association (BRA ...

The Implications of Memory Research and ‘Memory Erasers’: A Conversation with Yadin Dudai

In this conversation, the world-renowned neurobiologist Yadin Dudai discusses the latest advances in memory research, specifically the discovery of memory ‘erasure’ associated with the inhibition of an enzyme called PKMzeta. The conversation tackles the reductionist method in scientific inquiry, the mind/brain dilemma, the problematics of animal models in memory research, and the therapeutic implications of this groundbreaking discovery.