Viral Neuroscience

This semester in Cognitive Neuroscience at Haverford College we're exploring the role of neuroscience in society. On the first day of class we participated in two experiments that had previously demonstrated that neuroscience can be seductively appealing and affect our perceptions of the quality of the explanation provided. With that as a backdrop, we then explored the history of neuroscience, in particular paying attention to a few of the major revolutions in how we understand brain functioning. These two days together tell us that our current understanding of brain functioning is tenuous and likely ready for revising once we gather more information or develop new measurement techniques. This puts neuroscientists in an odd position of explaining what we know best for now and trying to do so in as understandable or approachable way as possible.

I asked the students this semester to write a term paper on a topic of their choice within cognitive neuroscience, but for a midterm checkin to make sure that they had gathered much of their background research as early as possible, I asked them to produce viral content that took their topic and made it both entertaining and informative. Their projects took the form of Buzzfeed Quizzes, Buzzfeed Listicles, Infographics and Videos and can be found gathered on our Tumblr page. Once we get back from spring break we'll discuss the impact of our work and what it meant or did for the public. In the act of translating research to be entertaining did we lose anything? Is it the responsibility of scientists to make work approachable or the public to work to try to understand science at a high-school or college level?

Help us make neuroscience go viral by sharing our work!