Targeting brains, producing responsibilities:The use of neuroscience within British social policy

AbstractConcepts and findings ‘translated’ from neuroscientific research are finding their way into UK health and social policy discourse. Critical scholars have begun to analyse how policies tend to ‘misuse’ the neurosciences and, further, how these discourses produce unwarranted and individualizing effects, rooted in middle-class values and inducing guilt and anxiety. In this article, we extend such work while simultaneously departing from the normative assumptions implied in the concept of ‘misuse’. Through a documentary analysis of UK policy reports focused on the early years, adolescence and older adults, we examine how these employ neuroscientific concepts and consequently (re)define responsibility. In the documents analysed, responsibility was produced in three different but intersecting ways: through a focus on optimisation, self-governance, and vulnerability. Our work thereby adds to social scientific examinations of neuroscience in society that show how neurobiological terms and concepts can be used to construct and support a particular imaginary of citizenship and the role of the state. Neuroscience may be leveraged by policy makers in ways that (potentially) reduce the target of their intervention to the soma, but do so in order to expand the outcome of the intervention to include the enhancement of society writ large. By attending as well to more critical engagements with neuroscience in policy documents, our analysis demonstrates the importance of being mindful of the limits to the deployment of a neurobiological idiom within policy settings. Accordingly, we contribute to increased empirical specificity concerning the impacts and translation of neuroscientific knowledge in contemporary society whilst refusing to take for granted the idea that the neurosciences necessarily have a dominant role (to play)

Stand Out in Class: restructuring theclassroom environment to reducesedentary behaviour in 9–10-year-olds—study protocol for a pilot clusterrandomised controlled trial

Background: Sedentary behaviour (sitting) is a highly prevalent negative health behaviour, with individuals of allages exposed to environments that promote prolonged sitting. Excessive sedentary behaviour adversely affects health inchildren and adults. As sedentary behaviour tracks from childhood into adulthood, the reduction of sedentary time inyoung people is key for the prevention of chronic diseases that result from excessive sitting in later life. The sedentaryschool classroom represents an ideal setting for environmentalchange, through the provision of sit-stand desks. Whilstthe use of sit-stand desks in classrooms demonstrates positiveeffects in some key outcomes, evidence is currently limitedby small samples and/or short intervention durations, withfewstudiesadoptingrandomisedcontrolledtrial(RCT)designs. This paper describes the protocol of a pilot cluster RCT of a sit-stand desk interventioninprimaryschoolclassrooms.Methods/Design:A two-arm pilot cluster RCT will be conducted in eight primary schools (four intervention, four control)with at least 120 year 5 children (aged 9–10 years). Sit-stand desks will replace six standard desks in the interventionclassrooms. Teachers will be encouraged to ensure all pupils are exposed to the sit-stand desks for at least 1 h/dayon average using a rotation system. Schools assigned to the control arm will continue with their usual practice, noenvironmental changes will be made to their classrooms. Measurements will be taken at baseline, beforerandomisation, and at the end of the schools’academic year. In this study, the primary outcomes of interest will beschool and participant recruitment and attrition, acceptability of the intervention, and acceptability and complianceto the proposed outcome measures (including activPAL-measured school-time and school-day sitting, accelerometer-measured physical activity, adiposity, blood pressure, cognitive function, academic progress, engagement, andbehaviour) for inclusion in a definitive trial. A full process evaluation and an exploratory economic evaluation willalso be conducted to further inform a definitive tria