Welcome to my website! I am a cognitive neuroscientist who works on problems at the interface of neuroscience and society.  These include:

  • the neural correlates of socioeconomic status and their causes and consequences
  • the policy implications of neuroscience for law and social policy
  • novel uses of brain imaging, in e.g. legal, diagnostic and educational contexts
  • the expanding use of neuropsychiatric medications by healthy people for brain enhancement
  • the many ways in which neuroscience is changing the way we think of ourselves as physical, mental, moral and spiritual beings

For overviews with minimal technical detail, please see:

  • A 2023 talk on neuroscience, SES and policy can be streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io-4pQy1SDA.  (Talk starts at 5’20”)
  • Farah, M. J. (2018). Socioeconomic Status and the Brain: Prospects for Neuroscience-Informed Policy. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 19 (7), 428-438.
  • Farah, M.J. (2016). Child Poverty and Brain Development. In R, Sternberg, S. Fiske, and D. Foss (Eds) Scientists Making a Difference: The Greatest Living Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions. Cambridge University Press.
  • Farah, M.J. (2015). Cognitive Enhancement: Can Science and Policy Catch Up with Practice? Science, 350, 379-380.

In addition to research and writing on these issues, I also teach courses, advise graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and direct the Center for Neuroscience & Society.  

On this website you will find information about me, and the projects I work on with my students and collaborators.