What does the public want to know about the brain? (original) (raw)

Nature Neuroscience volume 6, page 325 (2003) Cite this article

Scientists commonly assume that the public is most interested in research with short-term medical applications1, but this may not be a correct assumption for neuroscientists. According to the findings presented here, brain-related research topics with implications for everyday life, such as memory and emotion, elicit much more public interest than do topics such as brain diseases and therapies.

On a Brazilian internet website, O Cérebro Nosso de Cada Dia (“Our Daily Brain”, http://www.cerebronosso.bio.br), I conducted an on-line survey to determine what the public is interested in knowing about the brain. This non-profit website, updated monthly and available since August 2000, presents neuroscience news for the general public as brief essays on topics related to everyday life, and receives more than 300 visits per day.

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Figure 1: Which brain topics does the public prefer to read about?

The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Anatomia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-590, RJ, Brazil
    Suzana Herculano-Houzel

Authors

  1. Suzana Herculano-Houzel

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Herculano-Houzel, S. What does the public want to know about the brain?.Nat Neurosci 6, 325 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0403-325

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