Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York 10016, USA.
Health (London). 2010 Nov;14(6):635-52. doi: 10.1177/1363459309360796.
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.
基于神经科学的大脑表象和实践旨在向大众展示大脑，既肯定生物决定论，又颂扬可塑性，即大脑改变结构和功能的能力。神经科学大脑可塑性理论的流行应用充满了新自由主义主体观。针对可塑性的更乐观解读，我从治理术的框架来审视可塑性的大众应用。我描述了流行的大脑可塑性话语如何将大脑开放给个人的增强和风险规避技术，以及它如何促进神经元自我。我将大脑可塑性置于生物医学新自由主义的背景下，在这种背景下，生物生命的工程和改造被定位为自我认同和公民身份的关键。
