patchy, with no evidence of enough connections among crucial areas. The man in Cleveland was quite different: his neural networks were “intact, but dormant”; they just needed some stimulation, and electrodes provided that. Judging from what appeared in the papers during the Schiavo case, things weren’t that clear-cut to reporters or, presumably, the public. There was confusion everywhere, especially about the likelihood that she might one day have recovered. To some, withdrawing a food tube was murder.

How to communicate the differences between these two cases in a way that is fair to the science, but still captures the public’s attention?

The science of limited consciousness, and who has a chance of recovery, is just one of a myriad of contentious issues arising from neuroscience. Can technologies like functional MRI be taken further and actually detect when someone is lying? Or reveal which company logo appeals to you more?

It’s not just imaging. Drugs that are designed for use in attention deficit disorders and Alzheimer’s disease are being used by students to help focus during exams – drugs that enhance both memory and attention. But we don’t know their long-term effects. And even if they turn out to be benign, it is inevitable that they will be distributed unequally: some will be able to afford them, some won’t. What can we do about them? Should we worry about the increasing use of drugs like Prozac by people who aren’t depressed, but simply want to feel better?

There are many, many questions. Scientists and ethicists have thought about and discussed these problems. They have analyzed the media’s reactions, and found that the communication of neuroscience in the media needs some expert attention.

Current Research

Experts in science and communication have played an important role in disseminating information resulting from many forms of research (Illes et al. 2008; Racine et al. 2006). Over the two past decades, for example, science reporting on genomics and the new era of genetic testing has been instrumental in creating a solid base of knowledge for informed discussion (Conrad and Gabe 1999; Cardinal et al. 2003; Condit 2001; Condit, Parrott, and O’Grady 2000; Racine 2003). Needless to say, stem-cell research has also been a hot topic in the media and public domain (Mulkay 1994; Williams et al. 2003). Until recently, however, significantly less attention has been paid to the communication of contemporary neuroscience.

This deficit must be redressed, because the communication needs are growing. In neuroimaging for example, there has been a steady increase of studies specifically with ethical, social and policy implications (Illes et al. 2003; Illes et al. 2005). Among these are studies of problem-solving, moral decision-making, emotion, motivation, racial attitudes, personality traits, religious experience, and even lying and deception. Results are reaching far beyond medicine, into the courts, classrooms, and the open marketplace.

Media coverage constitutes a central pathway of communication about the human challenges of the full range of new neurotechnologies, from monitoring the brain using imaging techniques to intervening with brain drugs or implants. That communication outside the academic literature is a vital source of information flow, but its value is heavily yoked to timeliness and accuracy, and to the trade-off of hope and hype. More often than not, these are delicate knowledge, thought and word balances managed independently by scholars at seemingly two ends of the communication