Taking care of one's brain: how

manipulating the brain changes people's

selves

Por: Brenninkmeijer, J.

Revista: HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES

ISSN: 0952-6951

Fecha: 02/2010

Editor: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Publicado en: LONDON

Score: 1.1434742

Fuente: Web of Science

Volumen: 23

Nmero: 1

Pginas: 20

Pgina: 107

Idioma: English

Tipo: Journal Article

Temas:

brain devices

, self-enhancement

, technologies of the self

, BODIES

, TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION

, HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

, HEALTH

, HISTORY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

, self

, brain

Copyright: Copyright (c) 2014 Institute for Scientific Information

Resumen
The increasing attention to the brain in science and the media, and people's continuing quest for a
better life, have resulted in a successful self-help industry for brain enhancement. Apart from brain
books, foods and games, there are several devices on the market that people can use to stimulate
their brains and become happier, healthier or more successful. People can, for example, switch their
brain state into relaxation or concentration with a light-and-sound machine, they can train their
brainwaves to cure their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or solve their sleeping
problems with a neurofeedback device, or they can influence the firing of their neurons with electric or
magnetic stimulation to overcome their depression and anxieties. Working on your self with a brain

device can be seen as a contemporary form of Michel Foucault's 'technologies of the self'. Foucault
described how since antiquity people had used techniques such as reading manuscripts, listening to
teachers, or saying prayers to 'act on their selves' and control their own thoughts and behaviours.
Different techniques, Foucault stated, are based on different precepts and constitute different selves. I
follow Foucault by stating that using a brain device for self-improvement indeed constitutes a new self.
Drawing on interviews with users of brain devices and observations of the practices in brain clinics, I
analyse how a new self takes shape in the use of brain devices; not a monistic (neuroscientific) self,
but a 'layered' self of all kinds of entities that exchange and control each other continuously.