Papers by Suparna Choudhury
Technological developments in neuroscience over the last 20 years have generated excitement about... more Technological developments in neuroscience over the last 20 years have generated excitement about the potential of neuroscientific insights for the understanding of and intervention in children's and adolescents' behavior. This article introduces some ways in which new results from developmental cognitive neuroscience have been appropriated in the context of adolescent mental health. We also consider social and interpersonal factors that drive the use of neurobiological markers of mental disorders in pediatric psychiatry. Finally, we outline the current ambitions for using neurobiological biomarkers in adolescent mental health care and discuss some ethical challenges arising from the methodological, political, cultural, and social contexts of their application. Introduction The interest in neuroscientific expertise has spread rapidly beyond the laboratory, as interpretations about brain changes of young people increasingly provide an evidence base to guide psychiatric treatment, child-rearing, and policy. As researchers in neuroscience, psychiatry, and social science, we are interested in the interactions among science and the social, cultural, and political contexts of research. This paper examines ways in which new results from developmental cognitive neuroscience—in particular, brain changes discovered through neuroimaging techniques—have been appropriated in the context of adolescent mental health, reinforcing an emerging emphasis on neurobiological markers of mental disorders as diagnostic tools in pediatric psychiatry. We first outline current ambitions for the use of neurobiological biomarkers in adolescent mental health and social policy and then examine some scientific and ethical challenges that arise in the methodological, cultural, political, and social contexts of their application.
Mindfulness meditation is being advocated as a promising new educational, clinical, and social in... more Mindfulness meditation is being advocated as a promising new educational, clinical, and social intervention for youth, fueled by new evidence from neuroscience about the benefits of " growing the brain through meditation, " convergent with recent data on developmental neuroplasticity. Although still marginal and in some cases controversial, secular programs of mindfulness have been implemented with ambitious goals of improving attentional focus of pupils, social-emotional learning in " at-risk " children and youth and, not least, to intervene in problems of poverty and incarceration. In this article, we present insights from an ongoing study involving teachers and mentors working with young people using mindfulness education from an emerging project on the social and cultural contexts of " neuroeducation. " Our analysis points to the role of neuroscience in positioning these programs as legitimate and progressive, based on state-of-the-art science. We discuss the tensions arising from their moral reframing of social problems associated with poverty and inequality. " We have tremendous technology right here, " says Hollywood actor Goldie Hawn, gesturing towards her head, at a 2009 TEDMed Conference, where she describes the power of mindfulness to bring happiness to children. " We have a way to access it. We
properties either from the explanations provided by its own parts, or the 'purposes' that articul... more properties either from the explanations provided by its own parts, or the 'purposes' that articulate it in one way rather than another.
The use and misuse of digital technologies among adolescents has been the focus of fiery debates ... more The use and misuse of digital technologies among adolescents has been the focus of fiery debates among parents, educators, policy-makers and in the media. Recently, these debates have become shaped by emerging data from cognitive neuroscience on the development of the adolescent brain and cognition. ''Neuroplasticity'' has functioned as a powerful metaphor in arguments both for and against the pervasiveness of digital media cultures that increasingly characterize teenage life. In this paper, we propose that the debates concerning adolescents are the meeting point of two major social anxieties both of which are characterized by the threat of ''abnormal'' (social) behaviour: existing moral panics about adolescent behaviour in general and the growing alarm about intense, addictive, and widespread media consumption in modern societies. Neuroscience supports these fears but the same kinds of evidence are used to challenge these fears and reframe them in positive terms. Here, we analyze discourses about digital media, the Internet, and the adolescent brain in the scientific and lay literature. We argue that while the evidential basis is thin and ambiguous, it has immense social influence. We conclude by suggesting how we might move beyond the poles of neuroalarmism and neuro-enthusiasm. By analyzing the neurological adolescent in the digital age as a socially extended mind, firstly, in the sense that adolescent cognition is distributed across the brain, body, and digital media tools and secondly, by viewing adolescent cognition as enabled and transformed by the institution of neuroscience, we aim to displace the normative terms of current debates.
Critical neuroscience arose in response to the tremendous pace of developments in neuroscience 1 ... more Critical neuroscience arose in response to the tremendous pace of developments in neuroscience 1 during the last two decades, in particular the increasing emphasis of its findings in the social and cultural life of human beings. Indeed, the developments in neuroscience research have elicited a surge of interest from medicine, policy, and business. Furthermore, the last two years have seen a number of well-documented methodological controversies within the field, along with the emergence of ethical, historical, and social scientific projects on neuroscience. Many social scientists have claimed that notions of personhood among people in medicalized contexts are being radically transformed, replaced with the idea that "we are our brains" (Vidal, 2009) or that we are "neurochemical selves" . Neuroscience is therefore not only expanding as a field, and arguably as a culture, but is also increasingly discussed and contested within and beyond the academic sphere. There are, as a result, a number of different voices-some claiming the societal threats, others the revolutionary potential, and others still the banality of insights from research in neuroscience. How then should we make sense of the many growing discourses about neuroscience in society? How should we evaluate its effects?
The label "critical neuroscience" captures an important-and, we believe, productive-tension. This... more The label "critical neuroscience" captures an important-and, we believe, productive-tension. This tension represents the need to respond to the impressive and at times troublesome surge of the neurosciences, without either celebrating it uncritically or condemning it wholesale. "Critical" alludes, on the one hand, to the notion of "crisis," understood-in the classical Greek, predominantly medical sense of the term-as an important juncture and point of intervention, and, relatedly, to a task similar to that proposed by in The Conflict of the Faculties (rather than in his more famous "Critiques"), where he defends a space of unconstrained inquiry into the continual pressures put on scientific knowing by the vagaries of the political sphere. This opens up a space for inquiry that is itself inherently and self-consciously political. On the other hand, the concept of "critique" raises important associations with Frankfurt School critical theory. While critical neuroscience does not directly follow a Frankfurt School program, nor the reduction of science to positivism espoused by early critical theory, it does share with it a spirit of historico-political mission; that is, the persuasion that scientific inquiry into human reality tends to mobilize specific values and often works in the service of interests that can easily shape construals of nature or naturalness. These notions of nature or of what counts as natural, whether referring to constructs of gender, mental disorder, or normal brain development, require unpacking. Without critical reflection, they appear as inevitable givens, universal and below history, and are often seen as a form of "normative facticity," making specific claims upon us in everyday life (see Hartmann, this volume).
Social science & medicine (1982), 2012
The adolescent brain has become a flourishing project for cognitive neuroscience. In the mid 1990... more The adolescent brain has become a flourishing project for cognitive neuroscience. In the mid 1990s, MRI studies mapped out extended neuro-development in several cortical regions beyond childhood, and during adolescence. In the last ten years, numerous functional MRI studies have suggested that functions associated with these brain regions, such as cognitive control and social cognition undergo a period of development. These changes have been anecdotally and clinically used to account for behavioural changes during adolescence. The interpretation of these data that the "teen brain" is different has gained increasing visibility outside the neuroscience community, among policy makers and in the media, resonating strongly with current cultural conceptions of teenagers in Western societies. In the last two years, a new impetus has been placed on public engagement activities in science and in the popular science genre of the media that specifically attempts to educate children and teenagers about emerging models of the developing brain. In this article, we draw on data from an adolescent focus group and a questionnaire completed by 85 teenage students at a UK school, to show how teens may hold ambivalent and sometimes resistant views of cognitive neuroscience's teen brain model in terms of their own self-understandings. Our findings indicate that new "neuro"-identity formations are more fractured, resisted and incomplete than some of the current social science literature on neuro-subjectivities seem to suggest and that the effects of public policy and popular education initiatives in this domain will be more uneven and complex than currently imagined.
The adolescent brain has become a flourishing project for cognitive neuroscience. In the mid 1990... more The adolescent brain has become a flourishing project for cognitive neuroscience. In the mid 1990s, MRI studies mapped out extended neuro-development in several cortical regions beyond childhood, and during adolescence. In the last ten years, numerous functional MRI studies have suggested that functions associated with these brain regions, such as cognitive control and social cognition undergo a period of development. These changes have been anecdotally and clinically used to account for behavioural changes during adolescence. The interpretation of these data that the "teen brain" is different has gained increasing visibility outside the neuroscience community, among policy makers and in the media, resonating strongly with current cultural conceptions of teenagers in Western societies. In the last two years, a new impetus has been placed on public engagement activities in science and in the popular science genre of the media that specifically attempts to educate children and teenagers about emerging models of the developing brain. In this article, we draw on data from an adolescent focus group and a questionnaire completed by 85 teenage students at a UK school, to show how teens may hold ambivalent and sometimes resistant views of cognitive neuroscience's teen brain model in terms of their own self-understandings. Our findings indicate that new "neuro"-identity formations are more fractured, resisted and incomplete than some of the current social science literature on neuro-subjectivities seem to suggest and that the effects of public policy and popular education initiatives in this domain will be more uneven and complex than currently imagined.
With the rapid rise in neuroscience research in the last two decades, neuroscientific claims have... more With the rapid rise in neuroscience research in the last two decades, neuroscientific claims have travelled far beyond the laboratory and increasingly, 'facts' about the brain have entered the popular imagination. As cognitive neuroscience steps up its focus on neurological distinctions between different 'kinds of people', researchers in the social sciences and humanities have begun to investigate the role of neurological vocabulary in the constitution of identities. In this article, we explore the terrain of 'neurological identities' through a comparative analysis of identity issues among individuals diagnosed with autism, and among adolescents -two categories of people who constitute important objects of study in current work in cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry. In particular, we explore the social conditions that render neuroscience a language palatable to autistic self-advocates and controversial to adolescents. Through these case studies, we demonstrate the heterogeneity of the role of the brain in projects of identity formation, and the many possible meanings conferred by the notion of 'being wired up differently'.
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 2011
Die technologischen und experimentellen Entwicklungen der Neurowissenschaften in den letzten zwan... more Die technologischen und experimentellen Entwicklungen der Neurowissenschaften in den letzten zwanzig Jahren haben vielfältige Hoffnungen geweckt. Zunächst die auf bessere Behandlungsmöglichkeiten psychischer Krankheiten, doch alsbald sind weitere Anwendungs-gebiete erschlossen ...
There is a long tradition that seeks to understand the impact of culture on the causes, form, tre... more There is a long tradition that seeks to understand the impact of culture on the causes, form, treatment, and outcome of psychiatric disorders. An early, colonialist literature attributed cultural characteristics and variations in psychopathology and behavior to deficiencies in the brains of colonized peoples. Contemporary research in social and cultural neuroscience holds the promise of moving beyond these invidious comparisons to a more sophisticated understanding of cultural variations in brain function relevant to psychiatry. To achieve this, however, we need better models of the nature of psychopathology and of culture itself. Culture is not simply a set of traits or characteristics shared by people with a common geographic, historical, or ethnic background. Current anthropology understands culture as fluid, flexible systems of discourse, institutions, and practices, which individuals actively use for self-fashioning and social positioning. Globalization introduces new cultural dynamics and demands that we rethink culture in relation to a wider domain of evolving identities, knowledge, and practice. Psychopathology is not reducible to brain dysfunction in either its causes, mechanisms, or expression. In addition to neuropsychiatric disorders, the problems that people bring to psychiatrists may result from disorders in cognition, the personal and social meanings of experience, and the dynamics of interpersonal interactions or social systems and institutions. The shifting meanings of culture and psychopathology have implications for efforts to apply cultural neuroscience to psychiatry. We consider how cultural neuroscience can refine use of culture and its role in psychopathology using the example of adolescent aggression as a symptom of conduct disorder.
Cultural neuroscience is set to flourish in the next few years. As the field develops, it is nece... more Cultural neuroscience is set to flourish in the next few years. As the field develops, it is necessary to reflect on what is meant by 'culture' and how this can be translated for the laboratory context. This article uses the example of the adolescent brain to discuss three aspects of culture that may help us to shape and reframe questions, interpretations and applications in cultural neuroscience: cultural contingencies of categories, cultural differences in experience and cultural context of neuroscience research. The last few years have seen a sudden increase in the study of adolescence as a period of both structural and functional plasticity, with new brain-based explanations of teenage behaviour being taken up in education, policy and medicine. However, the concept of adolescence, as an object of behavioural science, took shape relatively recently, not much more than a hundred years ago and was shaped by a number of cultural and historical factors. Moreover, research in anthropology and cross-cultural psychology has shown that the experience of adolescence, as a period of the lifespan, is variable and contingent upon culture. The emerging field of cultural neuroscience has begun to tackle the question of cultural differences in social cognitive processing in adults. In this article, I explore what a cultural neuroscience can mean in the case of adolescence. I consider how to integrate perspectives from social neuroscience and anthropology to conceptualize, and to empirically study, adolescence as a culturally variable phenomenon, which, itself, has been culturally constructed.
We outline the framework of the new project of Critical Neuroscience: a reflexive scientific prac... more We outline the framework of the new project of Critical Neuroscience: a reflexive scientific practice that responds to the social, cultural and political challenges posed by the advances in the behavioural and brain sciences. Indeed, the new advances in neuroscience have given rise to growing projects of the sociology of neuroscience as well as neuroethics. In parallel, however, there is also a growing gulf between social studies of neuroscience and empirical neuroscience itself. This is where Critical Neuroscience finds its place. Here, we begin with a sketch of several forms of critique that can contribute to developing a model of critical scientific practice. We then describe a set of core activities that jointly make up the practice of Critical Neuroscience as it can be applied and practised both within and outside of neuroscience. We go on to propose three possible areas of application: (1) the problems related to new possibilities of neuropharmacological interventions; (2) the importance of culture, and the problems of reductionism, in psychiatry; (3) the use of imaging data from neuroscience in the law as alleged evidence about 'human nature'.
Mind, Brain, and Education, 2008
Adolescence is a time characterised by change -hormonally, physically and mentally. We now know t... more Adolescence is a time characterised by change -hormonally, physically and mentally. We now know that some brain areas, particularly the frontal cortex, continue to develop well beyond childhood. There are two main changes with puberty. Firstly, there is an increase in axonal myelination, which increases transmission speed. Secondly, there is a gradual decrease in synaptic density, indicating significant pruning of connections. These neural changes make it likely that cognitive abilities relying on the frontal cortex, such as executive functions and social cognitive abilities, also change during adolescence. Here we review recent research that has demonstrated development during adolescence of a variety of social cognitive abilities and their neural correlates.
In this fMRI study, we investigated the development during adolescence of the neural network unde... more In this fMRI study, we investigated the development during adolescence of the neural network underlying thinking about intentions. A total of 19 adolescent participants (aged 12.1-18.1 years), and 11 adults (aged 22.4-37.8 years), were scanned using fMRI. A factorial design was employed with between-subjects factor age group and within-subjects factor causality (intentional or physical). In both adults and adolescents, answering questions about intentional causality vs physical causality activated the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), superior temporal sulcus (STS), temporal poles and precuneus bordering with posterior cingulate cortex. In addition, there was a significant interaction between group and task in the medial PFC. During intentional relative to physical causality, adolescents activated part of the medial PFC more than did adults and adults activated part of the right STS more than did adolescents. These results suggest that the neural strategy for thinking about intentions changes between adolescence and adulthood. Although the same neural network is active, the relative roles of the different areas change, with activity moving from anterior (medial prefrontal) regions to posterior (temporal) regions with age.
The development of action representation during adolescence was investigated using a visually gui... more The development of action representation during adolescence was investigated using a visually guided pointing motor task (VGPT) to test motor imagery. Forty adolescents (24 males; mean age 13.1 years) and 33 adults (15 males; mean age 27.5 years) were instructed to both execute and imagine hand movements from a starting point to a target of varying size. Reaction time (RT) was measured for both Execution (E) and Imagery (I) conditions. There is typically a close association between time taken to execute and image actions in adults because action execution and action simulation rely on overlapping neural circuitry. Further, representations of actions are governed by the same speed-accuracy trade-off as real actions, as expressed by Fitts' Law. In the current study, performance on the VGPT in both adolescents and adults conformed to Fitts' Law in E and I conditions. However, the strength of association between E and I significantly increased with age, reflecting a refinement in action representation between adolescence and adulthood.
Uploads
Papers by Suparna Choudhury