Whem Madmen-era advertising guru David Mahoney became chair and president of the Dana Foundation, he decided to change the foundation's focus to neuroscience.  At the time, neuroscience and all it encompasses —stroke, dementia  addiction, depression, paralysis, and all the other countless other afflictions we endure—lagged far behind cancer and heart in research funding and outreach. Mahoney had a novel, if not brilliant idea: Convince the top people in the field that their help was needed— and find a way to utilize them.

Through its grants, programs, and connections, Dana soon became a force under Mahoney's tutelage. Succeeding him was his buddy, William Safire, a former Richard Nixon speechwriter, and the writer of one of the most popular features in journalism at the time, “On Language,” in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. In the mid-1990s, Safire turned Dana into a book publisher and started a monthly online feature he called Cerebrum. The idea was to attract some of the top neuroscientists in the field to debate controversies and ideas.

A great idea on paper but a pie-in-the-sky concept. Getting one top neuro geek to write on deadline was hard enough; two was completely unrealistic. Plus, geeks were usually scientists, not writers. They were not about storytelling or logically laying out arguments in interesting narrative. Plus, they were cautious about criticizing conflicting ideas and colleagues. As if these obstacles weren't enough, Safire insisted that an independent neuroscience peer vet the monthly article. And he wanted this done every month with one editor? Are you f'n kidding me?

At least three editors before me failed, badly. Over time, Safire's vision had morphed into dense, detailed articles that mostly centered around the biological mechanisms or sections of the brain: neurons, proteins, the glymphatic system, amygdala,  hippocampus, and on and on it goes—complete with citations and End Notes. Jesus Christ himself could not have pulled Safire's original vision for Cerebrum off. Maybe he could have with the help of several apostles.

That's what confronted me when I arrived after 20 years at Rutgers Magazine. And it was painful. Not helping was an advisory board of top neuroscientists who didn't understand that very few readers had any interest in the articles they were suggesting. Plus, Dana's aging in-house leadership had little or no journalism experience, and not much of an interest. Their main concern was appeasing the advisory board and scientific validity. Dana was respected in the neuroscience field and we needed, at all costs, to keep it that way. A noble but very limiting idea.

But sometime around 2018, the powers-that-be decided that many of Dana's programs had grown stale. To Dana's credit, they had contributed to make change for the better—improved government funding, mental health awareness, and the creation of a neuroethics field. Dana had even created something called Brain Awareness Week, a movement that  had gained traction in many parts of the world.

And, so a strategic plan process began. I saw this as my opportunity to fix something that was desperately in need of an overhaul, a publication that could maybe do some good in the world and get closer to Safire's vision and maybe then some in a practical way: an appealing and readable online quarterly magazine. Let's mix in neuroscientist writers with freelance journalists and produce a variety of more readable content. It wouldn't even take that much more money!

The Dana board and executive team agreed and off I went.

Bringing mental health and well-balanced public policy concerns into the mix and assembling the right team were crucial. One lesson I had learned was that the better a magazine looked, the more likely readers would be drawn to its content. My instincts told me that my old friend Bruce Hanson, who operated his own one-man design firm in Hightstown, NJ, would be the perfect fit. I had met Bruce at Rutgers, where he was designing a newspaper for Rutgers staff and faculty, but we had never worked together. Eventually, through colleagues, guitar playing morphed into a few lunchtime jam sessions and a cover band. We even had a few gigs. To promote the gig, Bruce would design amazingly creative posters. Boy, if you took the gloves off this guy, there is no telling what he could do, I thought.

Still, designing a magazine from scratch was a long way from brochures and posters — plus Bruce had worked exclusively in print. But print was in the midst of dying a slow death, and I knew Bruce's was having problems finding new print work. Over a few conversations, I convinced him to make the transition to digital. I think the idea of designing the magazine as an E book, which mimics a traditional print magazine, helped convince him.

And, with the help of a host of other folks, most notably my young colleague Seimi Rurup—bright, eager, and with a keen eye for aesthetics —we published ten issues before Dana pulled the plug. While Bruce hit it out of the park and we received rave reviews for the topics, authors, and departments we introduced, Dana's new president and the board decided to take the Foundation in a new direction — one that focused exclusively on grant giving.  

Along with more readable topics sometimes came points of view. A new Dana president was hired. She clearly wasn't comfortable with leading a foundation that advocated positions on whether research or public policy was good or bad—even if it was balanced. The board agreed. In one case, she killed an article from the African American head of a university that centered around the need for more diversity in neuroscience. Then she ruled against  very clever comic-style content from the head of hearing and cognition at Johns Hopkins, that pointed to a bill before Congress that would have covered the cost of hearing aids under Medicare, legislation that would enhance the lives of tens of thousands of seniors. Who doesn't want that? Anyway, four years later, Medicare still doesn't pay for hearing aids.

So this chapter closed. But we sure had fun bringing it to the growing audience while it lasted, and I like to think we could have kept growing and making a positive contribution to neuroscience journalism. In the end, we almost made a comeback with another foundation. But that's a whole other story.