“How Do You Know Unless You Look?”: Brain Imaging, Biopower and Practical Neuroscience Davi Johnson Published online: 5 July 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 Abstract Brain imaging is a persuasive visual rhetoric by which neuroscience is articulated as relevant to the construction and maintenance of desirable selves. In this essay, I describe how “brain-based self-help” literature disseminates neuroscientific vocabularies to public audiences. In this genre, brain images are an authoritative visual resource for translating neuroscience into a comprehensive program for living. I use Foucault’ s discussion of biopower to describe the ways in which brain-based self-help literature enables self- constitution in a biosocial age where health is a central means of communicating personal worth, social value and political order. The implications of this continuous self-fashioning are not limited to the personal realm but have important political consequences. Keywords Biopower . Brain imaging . Neuroscience Neuroscience increasingly permeates public discourse, transformed from a body of knowledge that is accessible only to experts into a “practical neuroscience” that serves as a guide for everyday living. Popular books such as Stephen Johnson’ s Mind Wide Open: Neuroscience and Everyday Life and Sharon Begley’ s Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain summarize contemporary neuroscience as a potent source of insight for daily life. In addition to these books by “lay” authors, neuroscientists and medical professionals are directly addressing public audiences to disseminate neuroscientific wisdom. One form in which neuroscientists address public audiences is instructional handbooks for living well that frame neuroscience as a comprehensive toolbox of techniques for living. Recent examples of these handbooks include Jeffrey Schwarz’ s Brain Lock: A Four Step Method to Change Your Brain Chemistry (1996); Richard Restak’ s Mozart’ s Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain’ s Potential (2001); and Daniel Amen’ s many books, including Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance (2005). J Med Humanit (2008) 29:147–161 DOI 10.1007/s10912-008-9062-4 D. Johnson (*) Southwestern University, 1001 E. University, Georgetown, TX 78626, USA e-mail: djohnson@southwestern.edu