To date, systematic analysis of neuroscience in the media has only addressed the area of media coverage of specific neurotechnologies such as fMRI, PET, and TMS (Racine et al., 2005, Racine et al., 2006 and Racine et al., 2010). This research identified three emerging trends in www.selleckchem.com/products/ABT-888.html media interpretations of neuroimaging. Neurorealism describes the use of neuroimages to make phenomena seem objective, offering visual proof that a subjective experience (e.g., love, pain, addiction) is a “real thing.” Neuroessentialism denotes depictions of the brain as the essence

of a person, with the brain a synonym for concepts like person, self, or soul. Finally, neuropolicy captures the recruitment of neuroscience to support political or policy agendas. These studies provide intriguing data, but the exclusive focus on neurotechnologies restricts their ATM Kinase Inhibitor scope. To be included in the analysis, media articles had to contain quite technical terms like fMRI or PET: the research therefore overlooked articles that discussed brain research without naming specific technologies or that used lay terms for them (e.g., “brain scans”). Here, we consider

how brain science, defined more generally, manifests in the mainstream media. To develop a comprehensive understanding of the portrayal of neuroscience research in the mainstream media, we conducted a search of the LexisNexis news media database for articles discussing brain research published between January 1, 2000 and December

31, 2010. The search was circumscribed to six national UK daily newspapers: the Daily Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail, Methisazone Sun, Mirror, and Guardian. These comprise the three best-selling broadsheets and three best-selling tabloids in the UK and span the political spectrum from right to left. Duplicated and irrelevant articles (e.g., obituaries, television listings) were removed, leaving a usable sample of 2,931 articles. These articles were subjected to a content analysis, with articles coded to reflect the subjects they contained (see Table 1). The data revealed that the number of articles published per year climbed steadily for most of the decade (Figure 1), despite drops in 2007 and 2009. Table 1 displays the percentage of articles that discussed different subjects. The most frequent category of subjects to which the media referred was brain optimization: 43% of all articles discussed enhancement of or threats to brain function. Thirty-six percent of articles referred to psychopathology, 24% to basic functions, and 14% to applied contexts. Fourteen percent discussed issues related to parenthood and 12% individual differences, while sexuality and morality both appeared in 11% of the sample. Cutting across this content, three major themes captured how neuroscience was represented in the media. The first relied on a framing of the brain as capital, i.e., a resource to be optimized.