Previous Events

CANCELLED - Research Seminar: Neurological identities, neuropolicies and the adolescent

This seminar is co-hosted with the Psychology Department.

The adolescent brain has become a flourishing project for cognitive neuroscience. In the mid 1990s, MRI studies mapped out the extended 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. This paper presents recent findings from an ethnographic study with teenagers in the UK about adolescent identities in the context of current knowledge of - and representations about - the developing brain from imaging neuroscience. The implications for burgeoning "neuropolicies" focused on adolescent behaviour and mental health are discussed from a critical neuroscience (www.critical-neuroscience.org) perspective. 

Contact rachel.simpson@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

Download this event in iCalendar format