The New Normal: How the definition of disease impacts enhancement

We’ve all been there. It’s exam week of your junior year of college
with two papers due the day after a final. You’re a new faculty member with a
semester of lectures to prepare and a lab to get started. You’re a tax
accountant and it’s early April. There is simply too much to do and not enough
hours in the day to get it all done while sleeping enough to keep your brain
working like you need it to. In that situation, where do you stand on cognitive
enhancement drugs? Most of us wouldn’t hesitate to grab a cup of coffee but
what about a caffeine pill, or a friend’s Adderall? Many discussions about
cognitive enhancement eventually come down to this question: where do we draw
the line? Currently most of the cognitive enhancers that create unease for
ethicists and the general public alike are prescription drugs that were
originally meant to treat conditions recognized as out of the realm of “normal”
such as diseases or deficits. Therefore, a key step in deciding where we should
stand on the acceptability of cognitive enhancement is to determine what is
normal and what needs to be medically treated. I’ll argue that one reason there
is so much gray area in the enhancement debate is that delineating normal from
diseased – particularly in the brain – is hardly a black-and-white matter.



Why does the definition of disease matter?
Enhancement is typically defined relative to normal abilities. Anjan Chatterjee of the
University of Pennsylvania suggested that “Therapy is treating disease, whereas
enhancement is improving “normal” abilities. Most people would probably agree
that therapy is desirable. By contrast, enhancing normal abilities gives pause
to many.”¹ However, many neuroethicists have wrestled with clearly
defining enhancement^2,3. The director of Emory’s Center for Ethics, Paul Root Wolpe argued
(2002) that the enhancement debate centers on the ability of substances or
therapeutics to directly affect the
brain in ways that are not necessary to restore health and, certainly, to date
the cognitive enhancement debate has focused primarily on pharmaceuticals, many
of which are approved to treat disorders but can have effects on healthy
individuals as well. Perhaps the best examples of this are methylphenidate
(Ritalin) and modafinil
(Provigil) which are prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) and narcolepsy respectively, but are increasingly being used by students
and professionals to boost cognitive performance at school and in the workplace^3-5.

From nytimes.com

Although drugs such as methylphenidate and
modafinil do not directly increase IQ, this measure of “intelligence”, albeit
somewhat controversial⁶, provides another useful
example of the distinction between treatment and enhancement. IQ is scored
relative to the median performance on a given test, set at 100. This means that
because IQ is normally distributed throughout the population, every 15 points
above or below that mark represents one standard deviation. Therefore 95% of
the population should fall within two standard deviations of the mean and score
between 70 and 130. Intellectual disability is defined by a score that is far
to the left on the bell-shaped distribution and, by these standards, it would
be impossible for a large fraction of the population to fall into this category
because the median would then shift[a]. Enhancement,
in terms of IQ, would be a potential improvement within the typical IQ range or
above it. As ethicist and philosopher Julian Savulescu points out, increasing an individual’s IQ from 60-70 would be
considered treatment for a disease but making the same jump from 70-80 is
enhancement since the initial score is already within the normal range².
This is not simply a matter of semantics because, while no currently available
drugs can boost IQ like this, they are frequently being used for other, perhaps
more tangible, cognitive effects. A poll in Nature
found that more than 1 in 5 respondents under the age of 35 have used drugs
explicitly for cognitive enhancement⁷ and
experts expect these numbers to continue to climb^4,8.




In a competitive
setting such as a large undergraduate class that is graded on a “curve”, a
student’s grade is dependent not just on her performance but on how it ranks
among her classmates. Therefore using a so-called study drug without a medical
need could be considered cheating and, if it is a prescription drug it would be
illegal. In fact, Duke University’s student ethics
guide explicitly labels “the unauthorized use of prescription medication
to enhance academic performance” as cheating. Therefore, in some cases patients
have an incentive to define themselves as diseased and a natural way to
circumvent issues of legality and social acceptability is to obtain a
prescription. While it is not known exactly how common this approach is, diagnosis
for ADHD has increased dramatically in recent years. One study found that
outpatient treatment for ADHD increased roughly four-fold in a large cohort
from 1987-1997 ⁹ and
another, more recent study from the CDC, found a nationwide 42% increase in
ADHD diagnosis from 2003 to 2011¹⁰. There
are many reasons for this increase, which likely include a better understanding of
the disorder but, as some have
point out, this increase coincides with policy changes that allow individuals
with intellectual disabilities to be tutored and granted extra time on exams.
These benefits, in addition to the increasingly common knowledge that ADHD
medications can improve concentration even in healthy users, may make it seem
like there is no downside to a diagnosis and might in turn incentivize parents
and students to seek out physicians willing to write prescriptions without
rigorous examinations. In addition, physicians have the ability to prescribe
drugs off-label (in ways not explicitly approved by regulatory agencies) and do
so commonly. A prime example of this practice is modafinil, a drug that is
approved in the US for sleep disorders such as narcolepsy but was found to be
prescribed for off-label indications nearly 90% of the time from 2002-2009⁵.




Disease may not just be defined by physicians,
or demand from patients, but also on the supply side by drug makers themselves
who readily take advantage of the opportunity for direct to consumer marketing in the
US (New Zealand is the only other developed country that allows this practice).
Indeed, a drug has little value to any company unless there is a market for it
and one approach is to convince the public that a common nuisance or
frustration (think shyness) is actually a disease (e.g. social phobia). Wolpe
(2002) noted that, “what medicine chooses to treat is defined as disease, while
altering what it does not treat is enhancement” however I think the inverse is
also true, that whatever positive effects medicines have in the absence of a known
deficit could also be considered enhancement. Pharmaceutical companies have
been branding
diseases (or some say disease
mongering) for decades with the hope that changing the definition of normal and
diseased can broaden the market for their stable of drugs under patent. A
recent overt example of this practice is the ubiquitous marketing of
testosterone supplements to remedy “low T” 
(hypogonadism), a disorder that was once thought be a rare condition but is now
suggested to afflict most middle-aged men (if the ads are to
be believed). Unfortunately, unnecessarily manipulating this hormone can have
serious life-long health consequences, some of which the FDA is now investigating

Wolinsky, 2005

By contrast, an area where the definition of
disease may be less important is in age-related cognitive decline. How much
mental ability needs to be lost in elderly individuals before the line is
crossed into cognitive impairment and who gets to make that decision? If drug safety
could reasonably be established then perhaps adults at that stage in life
should be able to choose to use cognitive enhancers whether or not their
deficits reach clinical thresholds. One could make the case that drugs could
actually help to preserve
authenticity, another controversial area and a major concern with their use in
children and young adults. To reiterate the difficulty in diagnosing disorders
of the brain, it is debatable whether even a profoundly debilitating disease
such as Alzheimer’s can be definitively diagnosed without
post-mortem tissue examination.




Diagnostic
practices are sure to change, though, and it is likely that in the near future
researchers will discover new biomarkers for neuropsychiatric disorders. However,
this will not necessarily make it any easier. It is doubtful that any biomarker
will give a clear yes-or-no, black and white indication. As to whether a biomarker
indicates something is “out of the range of normal” is also subject to the
moving target of what humans consider “normal”. Instead, a normal range will
need to be determined, but by whom? Given what is at stake it is hardly cynical
to suggest that drug makers will have a significant role and, in the end,
physicians will continue to be able to prescribe approved drugs for off-label
use⁵. In the
meantime, instead of immediately accepting that drugs with cognitive enhancement
potential are always permissible with a doctor’s diagnosis, there should be further
discussion between physicians, regulators, ethicists and disability
advocates about how that diagnosis is made. This determination will have
widespread implications for healthcare providers, insurance companies, drug
companies, and the general public and society who are struggling to determine
what constitutes “the good life” and ultimate human flourishing.






References

 


1) Chatterjee,
A. Cosmetic neurology: the controversy over enhancing movement, mentation, and
mood. Neurology 63, 968-974 (2004).




2) Savulescu, J. Justice, fairness, and
enhancement. Ann Ny Acad Sci 1093, 321-338, doi:DOI
10.1196/annals.1382.021 (2006).




2) Wolpe, P. R. Treatment, enhancement,
and the ethics of neurotherapeutics. Brain
Cogn 50, 387-395 (2002).




3) Cakic, V. Smart drugs for cognitive
enhancement: ethical and pragmatic considerations in the era of cosmetic
neurology. Journal of medical ethics 35, 611-615,
doi:10.1136/jme.2009.030882 (2009).




4) Greely, H. et al. Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the
healthy. Nature 456, 702-705, doi:10.1038/456702a (2008).




5) Penaloza, R. A., Sarkar, U., Claman,
D. M. & Omachi, T. A. Trends in on-label and off-label modafinil use in a
nationally representative sample. JAMA
internal medicine 173, 704-706,
doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.2807 (2013).




6) Weinberg, R. A. Intelligence and Iq -
Landmark Issues and Great Debates. Am
Psychol 44, 98-104 (1989).




7) Farah, M. J. et al. Neurocognitive enhancement: what can we do and what should
we do? Nature reviews. Neuroscience 5, 421-425, doi:10.1038/nrn1390 (2004).




8) Maher, B. Poll results: look who's
doping. Nature 452, 674-675, doi:10.1038/452674a (2008).




9) Olfson, M., Gameroff, M. J., Marcus,
S. C. & Jensen, P. S. National trends in the treatment of attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder. The American
journal of psychiatry 160,
1071-1077 (2003).




10) Visser, S. N. et al. Trends in the parent-report of health care
provider-diagnosed and medicated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder:
United States, 2003-2011. Journal of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 53, 34-46 e32, doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2013.09.001 (2014).






[a] Not to mention the “Flynn effect", which describes the phenomenon of increasing IQ worldwide over time.






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Purcell, R. (2014). The New Normal: how the definition of disease impacts enhancement.  The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2014/07/the-new-normal-how-definition-of.html

Neuroethics Journal Club: Sexual Fantasies and Gender/Sex

In May of 2013, The
New York Times Magazine published an article
discussing the ongoing clinical trials of a unique new drug that caught the
interest of Emory University neuroscience graduate student Mallory Bowers. The drug, dubbed “Lybrido”, was being tested
for its ability to improve sexual desire in women.  However, Lybrido is not just a female
Viagra-like formulation.  That is
apparently one part of it but the other, perhaps more surprising part, is the
pill’s testosterone coating that is designed to melt away immediately in the
mouth. To better understand how testosterone (T) could modulate female desire,
and to discuss the neuroethical implications of pharmaceutically targeting it,
Ms. Bowers chose a recent paper in the Journal of Sex Research by Goldey et al. entitled “Sexual Fantasies and
Gender/Sex: A Multimethod Approach with Quantitative Content Analysis and
Hormonal Responses” for the second Neuroethics Journal Club of the year. 

In the present study, Sari van Anders’s group at the
University of Michigan designed experiments to dissect the gender differences
in testosterone’s role in sexual behavior, which has not been well-understood.  Although men have much higher levels of T, it
is secreted by the adrenal glands in both men and women.  Similarly, men have comparable levels of
circulating estradiol (E₂) to women despite that hormone being
typically associated with the female reproductive cycle.  However, according to van Anders, the
available evidence suggests that while E₂ and T are both associated
with intimacy, E₂ is more related to nurturing behavior whereas T is
more closely linked to explicit sexuality. In this study, van Anders’s group explored
these potential differences by quantifying the nurturing and explicit sexual
content of volunteers’ fantasies accompanied by hormonal measures.




The Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (S/P Theory), as
presented by van Anders in a recent review¹,
is explained through an evolutionary perspective: explicit sexual contexts,
which support reproduction, increase T but nurturant contexts, which support
parent-offspring bonds perhaps at the energetic expense of further
reproduction, decrease T (in men). 
However, van Anders argues that social contexts strongly impact T
responses as well: men are socially discouraged from excessive nurturing and
women are socially discouraged from being overly sexual.  It is thought that perhaps due to their lower
baseline levels, women may be more sensitive to small changes in circulating
levels of T², and van Anders
hypothesized that levels of T might be differentially modulated by the content
of sexual fantasies in men and women.




In previous studies, T has been observed to increase most
consistently in the context of sexuality for physical pleasure in men and women,
but nurturing behavior has been associated with lower T in men³.  The same group found that sexual fantasy
increases T in women⁴ but not men⁵ and the authors
reasoned that sexual fantasies likely include thoughts of nurturing behaviors
in addition to those of an explicitly sexual nature which, according to S/P
Theory, would give a mixed signal in terms of T and could explain gender
differences.  These observations and
others have led van Anders to propose S/P Theory to better explain how these
hormones, in conjunction with the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin,
influence social and sexual behaviors in men and women.

The Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (van Anders et al.)

The study by Goldey et al. was designed to determine whether
fantasy content differs between genders and if the frequency of nurturing or
sexual content predicts hormonal responses. The authors report a significant
negative correlation specifically in men between change in T and frequency of
nurturant content in fantasies.  Essentially, the men who included less
nurturing images in their fantasies had larger increases in salivary T during
the test.  This was an expected result
and supports van Anders’s S/P Theory. 
However, the group also unexpectedly found no overall difference in the
amount of explicit sexual or nurturing content between male and female
fantasies.  The authors, as well as our
journal club group, thought that this might result from the volunteers being
mostly young undergraduate psychology students who are not necessarily
representative of even Western society at-large.  Moreover, it was suggested that relationship
status and history could strongly impact fantasy content and conceivably the
hormonal response to it.  An analysis of
any relationship between these variables might have been very interesting
though the sample size in this particular study might not have provided enough
statistical power to detect differences.  




So how does an individual’s hormonal profile impact fantasy
content and how do fantasies affect hormonal fluctuations?  There is still quite a lot to learn, but as exemplified by the makers of Lybrido and other potential female
libido-boosters, the impact of this research reaches well beyond academic
journal clubs and the neuroethical considerations are significant.  Another approach that this group could have
taken – which likely would have extended these findings – would be to dose
participants with placebo, T, or E₂ and then quantify sexual fantasy
narratives under each of these three conditions.  It would be very interesting to see if T and
E₂ differentially modulate narrative content in men and women but,
even if that is the case, should this be a pharmaceutical target?  Both Viagra and Lybrido essentially aim for
the same effect but the latter affects brain function as well as blood
flow.  But is lack of sexual desire
really a mood disorder or, is any uneasiness about the prospect of a female
libido-enhancer simply the result of our society being less comfortable with
women wanting to improve their sex lives? 
These questions are clearly beyond the scope of Goldey’s paper but may
be important to discuss for future basic science and clinical research.




An innovative aspect of van Anders’s study was the
integration of individual narratives as well as biological measures.  As the authors point out, biological measures
are often thought to be more valid than qualitative analyses.  In this case the narratives provided a very
useful context to understand the hormonal data and this approach will likely be
useful in future studies.  To some, the
idea of a single pill to modulate a complex mood may be offensively
reductionist but van Anders’s multi-method approach offers the possibility to
better understand the nuances of the reciprocal relationship between hormonal
fluctuations and sexual attitudes.  One
near-certainty is that a drug like Lybrido will reach the market soon and so in
the meantime, and beyond, studies and discussions such as these should
continue.






For more on Dr. van Anders check out this 2012 interview
on The Neuroethics Blog.






References

1. 
   van Anders, S. M., Goldey, K. L. & Kuo, P. X. The Steroid/Peptide Theory of
   Social Bonds: integrating testosterone and peptide responses for classifying
   social behavioral contexts. Psychoneuroendocrinology
   36, 1265-1275,
   doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.06.001 (2011).




2. 
   Sherwin,
   B. B. A Comparative-Analysis of the Role of Androgen in Human Male and Female
   Sexual Behavior - Behavioral Specificity, Critical Thresholds, and Sensitivity.
   Psychobiology 16, 416-425 (1988).
   




3. 
   S.M. van
   Anders, K. L. G., P.X. Kuo. The steroid/peptide theory of social bonds:
   Integrating testosterone and peptide responses for classifying social
   behavioral contexts. . Psychoneuroendocrinology,
   1265-1275 (2011).
   




4. 
   Goldey,
   K. L. & van Anders, S. M. Sexy thoughts: effects of sexual cognitions on
   testosterone, cortisol, and arousal in women. Hormones and behavior 59,
   754-764, doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2010.12.005 (2011).
   




5. 
   Goldey,
   K. L. & van Anders, S. M. Sexual thoughts: links to testosterone and
   cortisol in men. Archives of sexual
   behavior 41, 1461-1470,
   doi:10.1007/s10508-011-9858-6 (2012). 

Want to cite this post?




Ryan, P. (2013). Neuroethics Journal Club: Sexual Fantasies and Gender/Sex. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/11/neuroethics-journal-club-sexual.html

Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari van Anders

Dr. Sari van Anders

After attending the Neurogenderings Conference in Vienna, where participants debated whether it would be
possible to conduct feminist neuroscience research, I decided it would be
useful to interview an actual practicing feminist neuroscientist – and I knew
just who to talk to. Dr. Sari van Anders is an Assistant Professor in Psychology and Women’s Studies
at the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological &
Cognitive Psychology from Simon Fraser University. In her social neuroendocrinology lab at the University of Michigan, she conducts feminist neuroscience
research on a variety of topics, with a principle focus on the social
modulation of testosterone via sexuality, partnering/pair bonding, and
nurturance. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the American Institute of Bisexuality and has published articles in Hormones and Behavior, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Psychoneuroendocrinology, among others.

I
asked her to talk about what she sees as feminist about her own behavioral
neuroscience research, how she has secured support for her work from other behavioral
neuroendocrinologists, and what advice she would give to early career
scientists who want to incorporate feminist concerns into their research. Read
on for Dr. Van Anders’ thoughtful and thought-provoking answers.

I have heard you
describe your research as a behavioral neuroscientist as ‘feminist.’ Can you
explain what you see as feminist about your behavioral neuroscience research?

Feminist science practice, like other aspects of feminism
(e.g., activism, praxis, theory, etc.), is not one thing. So the ways in which
I position my work as feminist may not be the same as the ways in which other
scientists might position their science, or the ways nonscientists might
position my work. With that caveat in mind, onwards! One important feminist
facet of my work is that I see science as one way to approach knowledge
creation/production, as opposed to the only way or the most valuable way.
Science can help us understand certain aspects of certain phenomena and is
valuable as such, but is more valuable when we recognize its limitations and
acknowledge the value of insights gained from other approaches.

Another important feminist facet of my work is that I see
vast gulfs of difference between bioscience and biologically determinist
thinking; so, I separate out natural from material, innate from trait, must
from is, etc. Our bodies and the biological systems inside of them are
recipients of socialization in the same ways our behaviors and cultural
practices are. Social modulation of hormones is a major thrust of my research
program… how could I (or we) think of our bodily systems as only preprogrammed
when we increasingly know how each biobody exists in a social context? A major part
of feminist thought critiques the split between gender and sex because it has
in large part left sex (i.e., biology; nature) as a fixed, natural, acultural
entity. Part of the work my research does is to expand notions of
sex/nature/biology such that we see biological properties as malleable and
socially located.

Another way my work is feminist is that I think about
inequities while I do my work, including how social location might affect the
questions I ask and my own understandings of phenomenon, but also how a gender
or intersectional lens might help me understand my findings better (which it almost
always does). Critically engaging with one’s positionality has been called
‘strong objectivity.’ Theory compelled me and my own research has convinced me
that objectivity works closer to how we want it to when we constantly engage
with and interrogate our own biases and positions.

My work is also feminist because it’s informed by feminist
thought, especially feminist science studies, even when the work is not focused
on gender/sex. It’s feminist because I don’t think that science leads to
simpler answers; I’m not, and I don’t think science intrinsically is (except in
practice), reductionist. I study hormones and this research often leads me to
explode phenomenological categories. For example, we found that cuddling
increased testosterone – and followed up by theorizing and studying both
cuddling and testosterone with fascinating and – to my mind – transformative
findings about both. Similarly, we found that sexual desire is linked to
testosterone in sometimes counterintuitive ways, which has led us to ask: what are people desiring when they desire? These
are far from reductionist implications, because they leave us with more
questions about hormones but also the social phenomenon we’re studying (rather
than simplifying them). The world is complex, and science helps us appreciate
how complex.

van Anders has found that cuddling can increase testosterone levels in women

Image from Flickr by malloreigh

I also see my work as
feminist because I think about it as community- and alliance-building. If
knowledge production were collaborative rather than competitive, what would it
look like? We try to build those sorts of relationships with colleagues, junior
and senior, to make science what we wish it could be (i.e., where we constantly
push at the clarity and meaningfulness of our understandings of phenomena
together, critically, constructively, enthusiastically, and connected to lived
experiences). Finally, I think of my work as feminist because the knowledge we
create is situated, as I and my lab
happily acknowledge that our findings make sense in this time and place because
they were produced in this time and place.

Can you say a little
bit about what you mean by “inclusive research and lab practices”?

I’ve been thinking about inclusive research and lab
practices since early graduate school, and I’ve come to define it for myself as
an ongoing process that involves thinking about how my lab operates, research
methods, and science communication approaches. I could go on and on about this,
and love to, but will limit this to some concrete examples. In the lab, e.g., I
think about how I recruit people, how I make clear the implicit and explicit
‘rules’ of labs and my lab for the people who work in my lab and come from
diverse backgrounds, how diverse perspectives will help us get closer to more
truthful and rounded knowledge. I think about how we treat each other in ways
that are respectful of difference, sameness, and culture, and are realistic
about power.

In my methods, I think a lot about how we recruit
participants and who feels welcome into science and why. I work hard to make
our studies places where people from rightly science-skeptical groups have a
place, for reasons beyond or unrelated to difference (while still making room
to honor those differences). So, posters, questionnaires, recruitment ads, etc.
How do we ask questions - and most of my research is quantitative – that honor
people’s lived experiences? That map onto people’s realities? That reflect
people’s autonomy and respect their self-identities? These are grand goals, and
we are obviously therefore continually striving to do better at the principles that
underlie them.

Inclusive questionnaires as a part of inclusive
research methods

In science communication, I think a lot about the ways I
write papers and the ways that I am allowed
to write papers (I get some pretty hostile reviews that limit my ability to
communicate certain ideas or in certain ways), how I involve my students (e.g.,
I have a lot of undergraduate co-authors, including first-authors on my
papers), whom I speak to at conferences, how I get involved in mentoring, etc.

So... I see inclusive research practices as trying to
provide a model of science that explicitly acknowledges that science is a human
endeavor and therefore political – and a
model that therefore works within a consciously-articulated and progressive
frame. So, inclusive research practices is kind of like saying that ‘the
personal is political and it’s not just Politics that are political’ but in a
science-y way, like: 'the day-to-day of science is political, and it’s not just
Science that is political.'

The fact that you
have received a number of major grants and have published your work in the
leading journals in your field indicates that you have managed to secure the
support of other behavioral neuroscientists. How were you able to get other
scientists to support your research?

“Coming out as
Feminist”:
Feminists come in all sizes

Image from Flickr by Daniel Morrison

Well, one strategy of many feminists in non-feminist-allied
disciplines (of which behavioral neuroscience is certainly one!) is to go into
stealth mode. I had a major strategy which was to build up a large body of
research and then one day be like: surprise! This was feminist all along! I
think I’ve adhered to this strategy somewhat, but there are cues that
scientists pick up on (‘radical’ things like using self-identification terms
for sexuality, using non-binaristic gender/sex language, incorporating social
location) and I think now I’ve been made. Also, it became increasingly
difficult to do the work while straddling a fence – like, have you ever tried
to do anything while
fence-straddling? – because that meant partitioning myself in uncomfortable and
inauthentic ways…I found that the more people could level Feminist! as an 'insult,' the more they would. As soon as I became more explicitly
feminist, it became hard for others to level ‘feminist’
as an insult. Sort of like coming out, as in sometimes people have more power
when they can insinuate something you’re not yet sharing. I also think that my
subfields – behavioral neuroendocrinology (BNE) and sex research – are
feminist-friendly in their own ways. BNE already pays a lot of attention to
sexual diversity and gender/sex, as well as social location in certain limited
ways (e.g., how poverty might affect stress hormones). So it’s less of a leap
to think about how other aspects of social location might matter. Sex research
also has some progressive traditions and elements, and I’ve been lucky in that
I see myself continually able to mine that vein of progressiveness in all my
colleagues. I think I’ve had a lot of privilege that I’ve been able to use too;
I am trained in neuroscience, I’m white, I’ve had financial safety nets, I’m
Canadian and now in the U.S., so I think my position has let me do a lot with
fewer roadblocks than others might experience.

I am not so naïve to think that merit is enough for
anything. But I do want to stake a claim to doing good work; I think I do great
work! People know that I love my work, and I think my enthusiasm is catching. I
think that my feminist approaches are intrinsically part of why my work is
great – feminist science is not just ‘good science’. Feminist science is more
than just good science, even while it also is
good science. So, the more critically engaged my science is, the better science I
produce.

I also think that I have worked extremely hard to be
bio-legible and speak to my colleagues in ways they will understand. I used to
think of my work as challenging/pushing/etc., but I now see my research program
as building/reframing/expanding. I think this noncombative approach is more in
line with how I’d like to see change happen when possible (‘be the change you
want to see’ sort of thing). And I think because I work within my fields but on
the margins, this insider/outsider status has given me a lot of space to do
what I do, but also others to be generous and supportive. I’m really careful,
too. I read book and article after book and article about the doing of science
in terms of the politics and management, etc. I’ve never believed that whatever
merit I do have will shine on its own as some sort of Sari-beacon, so I work
hard to connect with people who have shared interests in some way. I’m also
beyond extroverted (I’d way rather talk to a stranger than eat alone!) so that
makes it a pleasure to connect with people. And since science is done by and
with people, I think that this has helped too.

But you know, this question is hard to answer, especially as
I’m pretenure and still junior. I think I’ll have more perspective as time –
and I – march on.

How has your work
been received by feminist scholars and activists who are not scientists?

I often worry about how my work will be received by critical
scholarship audiences when I'm not there to situate it... and even when I am.
So it has been a really pleasant and welcome experience to find that folks from
across women's studies and critical scholarship seem to be really interested in
my work and, moreover, really extraordinarily generous. I think part of the
reason is that I really do listen to and am interested in what people have to say, and make changes in
my science. I think another reason is that I also try really hard to speak the
language. I think scientists are often worried about how their work will be
received and whether it will be attacked, like: why open up another front?! But I think critical thought and careful, conscious positioning go a
long way (in scholarship, and elsewhere!). Like I said about neuroscience, I
try to be biolegible. But I also often joke that I'm 'bilingual' because I can
speak to both groups and even joint groups, so I also try to be WS-legible. In part, I think this is because I
really truly understand that these epistemological approaches are so deeply
different that I can see where there's room for them to come together.

Do you have any
advice for students and early-career researchers who want to incorporate
feminist insights into their basic science research?

I can’t not recommend stealth mode. People are still so
misinformed about what feminist science would be that it could be such a major
and immediate stumbling block, especially to a junior person. I also can’t not
recommend authenticity. We all are most passionate about doing work that has
meaning, and I know those times when I’ve gone into deep stealth have been some
of the most professionally (and personally) deathly stultifying and unfulfilling times.

Sometimes stealth
mode is required

Image from Flickr by jeriaska

There are few guides to doing feminist science practice, but
I’m trying to build some – get in touch with me and others who seem like
allies. I’m also building a feminist science practice website just to
facilitate these sorts of alliances, so look for that! I have other more
prosaic suggestions: remember that you are the person on the ground, so you
have to make decisions that will
sometimes turn out to be wrong in ways you can only realize through
experience. Remember that no matter how grand your audience might be in your
imagination, you have to get through reviewers, editors, program officers, etc.
to get your work published and funded and that doing so involves negotiations
with your principles that not need to be positioned as ‘selling out’ to guilt
trip yourself. Finally, remember that what you’re doing is hard, because you’re
creating new knowledge (which is hard enough) but you’re also creating the ways
to create new knowledge, so be patient with yourself, excited at your successes,
and generous with your colleagues (and maybe also generous with yourself and patient with your colleagues).

Want to Cite this Post?

Gupta, K. (2012). Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari Van Anders. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/doing-neuroscience-doing-feminism.html.