SIG: Inclusion in Neuroscience - Post 6

SIG: Inclusion in Neuroscience - Post 6

Author: Taryn Crone 

Undergraduate intern for the B-RAD Lab at the University of Alabama 

This week, the lab discussed an article by Olivia P. Matshabane titled, “Promoting diversity and inclusion in neuroscience and neuroethics.”  In this article she stresses the need for more inclusion in neuroscience and neroethics specifically throughout different countries and continents like Africa. She stressed that Africa was ready to be more involved in research. The lab agreed that there should be more inclusion throughout different continents and countries and that in an ideal world, each research participant pool would be made up of the proportion of each country as it relays to the world population.

The lab discussed how inclusion is not only about who we include in research but the questions we ask. One example was brain stimulation treatment. Most people in the world are not going to have access to such advanced technology so although it is fascinating, should more research be aimed at techniques that are more widely applicable?

The main critique the lab had was that the paper was too conceptual. The author did a beautiful job at laying out the problems in the research society but gave little emphasis on how society should go about fixing these problems. The lab came to the conclusion that it would be a long process that would most likely have to start with more communication between researchers and countries as well as more open dialogue between multiple people and dynamics. We also discussed how these conversations and the start of research integration would look different for each continent, country, and city in the world since all have different languages, cultures, and normalcies.


Matshabane, O. P. (2021). Promoting diversity and inclusion in neuroscience and Neuroethics. EBioMedicine, 67, 103359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2021.103359