BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
NAME POSITION TITLE
François Gonon, Ph.D.
Research Director (equivalent to University Professor)
Education and training
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION DEGREE
(if applicable) YEAR(s) FIELD OF STUDY
University of Poitiers, France MS 1970 Physics
University of Lyon, France Ph.D. 1977 Neuroscience
University of Lyon, France Dr. es Sci. 1984 Neuroscience
François Gonon
Born in La Tronche (France), February 24, 1948, French citizen.
Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2
Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives
CNRS UMR 5293
146, rue Léo Saignat, B.P. 28
33076 BORDEAUX
France
Tel: 33 557 57 12 90
Fax: 33 556 98 61 82
E-mail: francois.gonon@u-bordeaux2.fr
Professional Experience
2013- Emeritus Research Director at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Bordeaux University, France
1994-2013 Research Director (equivalent to University Professor), CNRS? University of Bordeaux.
1978-94 Research Scientist, CNRS and University of Lyon 1, France
1975-77 Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Lyon 1, France, Michel Jouvet, advisor
Honors
1999 Prize "Cristal" from CNRS
List of research grants during the last 5 years; François Gonon principal investigator
- 2014 - "When neuroscientists talk to journalist: the art of portraying uncertainty into certainty" (Institut des Sciences de la Communication du CNRS)
- 2011- "Scientific controversies in the mass media: the role of the scientific discourse" (Institut des Sciences de la Communication du CNRS)
- 2010-2014 "Construction of disease categories in mental health" (Region Aquitaine)
- 2009- "The drift of the neuroscience discourse and its social consequences" (Institut des Sciences de la Communication du CNRS)
Peer-reviewed articles published by F. Gonon and coworkers about ADHD
Bourdaa, M., Konsman, J. P., Secail, C., Venturini, T., Veyrat-Masson, I., & Gonon, F. (2013). Does television reflect the evolution of scientific knowledge? The case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder coverage on French TV. Public Understanding of Science, in press.
Gonon, F., Konsman, J. P., Cohen, D., & Boraud, T. (2012). Why most biomedical findings echoed by newspapers turn out to be false: the case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. PLoS ONE, 7(9), e44275.
Gonon F, Bézard E, Boraud T (2011) Misrepresentation of neuroscience data might give rise to misleading conclusions in the media: the case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. PLoS ONE 6:e14618.
Gonon, F., Bezard, E., & Boraud, T. (2011). What should be said to the lay public regarding ADHD etiology. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet, 156(8), 989-991. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.31236
Gonon F, Guilé JM, Cohen D (2010) Neurobiology and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a review of the recent data. Neuropsychiatrie de l'enfance et de l'adolescence 58:273-281.
Gonon F (2009) The dopaminergic hypothesis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder needs re-examining. Trends in Neuroscience 32(1):2-8.
A selection of highly cited peer-reviewed articles published by F. Gonon and coworkers
Mallet N, Ballion B, Le Moine C, Gonon F (2006) Cortical inputs and GABA interneurons imbalance projection neurons in the striatum of Parkinsonian rats. J Neurosci 26:3875-3884.
Benoit-Marand M, Borrelli E, Gonon F (2001) Inhibition of dopamine release via presynaptic D2 receptors: time course and functional characteristics in vivo. J Neurosci 21:9134-9141.
Chergui K, Suaud-Chagny MF, Gonon F (1994) Nonlinear relationship between impulse flow, dopamine release and dopamine elimination in the rat brain in vivo. Neuroscience 62:641-645.
Gonon F (1988) Nonlinear relationship between impulse flow and dopamine release by rat midbrain dopaminergic neurons as studied by in vivo electrochemistry. Neuroscience 24:19-28.
Gonon F, Buda M, Cespuglio R, Jouvet M, Pujol JF (1980) In vivo electrochemical detection of catechols in the neostriatum of anaesthetized rats: dopamine or DOPAC? Nature 286:902-904.
Short biography
François Gonon has been working for 35 years as a neurobiologist. He published seminal studies about neurotransmission mediated by dopamine. He is a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France and a member of the Institute of Degenerative Disease at the University of Bordeaux. He is also associated with the Institute of Science Communication of the CNRS. In 2008 he became interested in the communication of neuroscience findings about ADHD to the lay public in mass media. He analyzed the neuroscience discourse and showed that misrepresentations of neuroscience observations already occur within scientific publications themselves. Publication bias also plays a major role in the distorted media reporting. Indeed, initial scientific publications often report larger effects than subsequent studies on the same issue. He observed, in the case of ADHD, that journalists preferentially report on initial findings and almost never inform the public that most of these are refuted or strongly attenuated by subsequent studies. He discussed the social consequences of the distorted neuroscience discourse regarding public beliefs and mental health policies about ADHD. His recent article, entitled “Biological Psychiatry: A Speculative Bubble,” had a considerable effect on the French public.