Sophie Reed
Pronouns: She/her
Research Mentor(s): Shervin Assari
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Public Health + Psychiatry / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Oral5
Session: Session 2 – 11am – 11:50am
Room: Breakout Room 4
Authors: Sophie Reed
Presenter: 3
Abstract
Despite widespread acknowledgement of health disparities due to a racialized system and society, the vast majority of the most influential and highly-cited neuroscience papers do not acknowledge, study, or discuss the roles that race and ethnicity may play in general neuroscience.The subject of race-based biological or more specifically, neurological differences is one that is rightly difficult to breach, given the horrific history of racist “sciences†like phrenology, social Darwinism, eugenics, and Nazism. In more recent years, The Bell Curve – published in 1994 and co-authored by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein was a highly controversial book that cited race as an indicator of IQ (intelligence quotient). As a result, modern neuroscience papers, upon which countless other inquiries are based or supported by (as shown by citation counts), have yet to appropriately, and scientifically consider the race and ethnicity of their participants. Whether the lack of acknowledgement of these factors are the results of efforts to be “politically correct,†non-confrontational, or just a disturbing oversight, the result is the same. The Marginalized-Related Diminished Returns Research Center (or MDRs), identifies and investigates the various effects that racism has on the brain development of minority individuals, specifically Black and Latino Americans. MDRs research, and other existing literature has documented the physical effects of discrimination and racism on children’s brain development. This research shows that in many cases, discrimination has long lasting effects on mental health, neural development, and brain function and structure. This study analyzed a sample of some of the most influential and highly cited papers and studies in the field of neuroscience (n = 100) in an effort to expose the extent to which the field ignores race and ethnicity. The results encourage further research into the role of race and ethnicity in neuroscience, in addition to encouraging individual researchers to discuss differences across racial and ethnic groups and the societal faults and systems that created them.
Interdisciplinary, Public Health
