You don't have to be a brain scientist

You'd have to be walking around with a paper bag over your head not to be aware of the current brouhaha surrounding neuroscience, neuropsychology and neuromarketing. Neuroscience could revolutionise research, says Caroline Whitehill, but not how we think it will.

In the world of science, the development of the MRI scanner over the past decade has allowed a whole range of research that was previously impossible. Meanwhile, watching from the worlds of marketing, research, and advertising, people like Wendy Gordon (1) and Robert Heath (2) among others have been talking about the implications of neuroscience for some years.

Only now, however, has the topic gained critical mass. A couple of years ago, a search for 'neuroscience' on WARC's website would uncover barely a handful of articles. Today, there are almost a hundred and the list is growing with every publication, while Baroness Greenfield's books on the brain (3,4) are bestsellers. Claims are being made and there are dark mutterings about the effect of this on traditional research.

So what is neuroscience really all about? Is it a threat to the world of qualitative research? Or is it just a fad that will disappear from the scene as quickly as it arrived?
 

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