The plastic brain: Neoliberalism and the neuronal self
The plastic brain: Neoliberalism and the neuronal self
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DOI：
10.1177/1363459309360796
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发表时间：
2010-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Pitts-Taylor, Victoria
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Pitts-Taylor, Victoria
以神经科学为基础，以外行人群为对象的大脑表现和实践，既肯定了生物决定论，又颂扬了可塑性，即大脑改变结构和功能的能力。关于大脑可塑性的神经科学理论的流行应用充斥着对这一主题的新自由主义观点。与对可塑性的更乐观解读相反，我认为可塑性是通过政府框架进行的流行部署。我描述了关于可塑性的流行大脑讨论如何使大脑向个人增强和规避风险的技术开放，以及它如何促进神经元自我。我把大脑的可塑性放在生物医学新自由主义的背景下，在这个背景下，生物生命的工程和改造被定位为对自我和公民身份至关重要。
Neuroscience-based representations and practices of the brain aimed at lay populations present the brain in ways that both affirm biological determinism and also celebrate plasticity, or the brain's ability to change structure and function. Popular uses of neuroscientific theories of brain plasticity are saturated with a neoliberal vision of the subject. Against more optimistic readings of plasticity, I view the popular deployment of plasticity through the framework of governmentality. I describe how popular brain discourse on plasticity opens up the brain to personal techniques of enhancement and risk avoidance, and how it promotes a neuronal self. I situate brain plasticity in a context of biomedical neoliberalism, where the engineering and modification of biological life is positioned as essential to selfhood and citizenship.