blog.bioethics.net

January 2008 AJOB Neuroscience

In case you missed it, the January issue of AJOB Neuroscience is now online. It features two target articles:

Neuroimaging Techniques for Memory Detection: Scientific, Ethical, and Legal Issues
by Daniel V. Meegan

A Leg to Stand On: Sir William Osler and Wilder Penfield's "Neuroethics"
by Joseph J. Fins

As always, each target article is accompanied by a group of peer commentaries. January's issue also features the editorial "Women's Neuroethics? Why Sex Matters for Neuroethics" by Molly C. Chalfin, Katrina A. Karkazis, and Emily R. Murphy. The full text of the commentary is open access. Here's a clip:

Why should we pay special attention to the neuroscience of sex differences? Perhaps the most important reason is that this work will prove important for contested ideas about the so-called nature of human nature. One only need look to the Larry Summers debacle in 2005 to see how contentious the topic is and how far-reaching its effects may be. Although the question of how and why women and men are different is an old one, neuroscience's use of cutting-edge technology - coupled with a growing reliance on science to shed light on complex human behavior - increases the likelihood that this work will leap to the forefront of public discussion and debate about social equality.

This issue also includes the essay "The Prospects for Neuro-Exceptionalism: Transparent Lies, Naked Minds" by Robert Wachbroit. And that, too, is open access. Here's a clip:

In dozens if not hundreds of science fiction movies and stories, a machine is used at some point to determine what someone is really thinking. Does she really remember that terrible event? Is she really telling the truth? Does she really love her husband? What was she really thinking the moment of the crime? The hold of this theme on the popular imagination quite likely underlies some of the current anxiety about neuroscience. Will it provide us with a significantly different kind of information about people's thoughts and feelings, like those science-fiction machines? Will it yield accurate and reliable conclusions about what is on, or in, a person's mind, regardless of her intention or willingness to share that information? Will it pose a special threat to privacy?

These concerns are provoked by actual developments in neuroscience and technology, particularly in brain imaging. We can now see what people's brains "look like" when people are performing various cognitive functions and displaying various emotions, and we can observe striking differences in the brain images of people differing in age, gender, and psychiatric diagnosis. Yet, while these images may seem to reveal much that was previously concealed, some of the questions we just raised are vague and unclear. What do we mean by "significantly different kind of information"? Is that not a matter of degree? What constitutes a "special threat to privacy"? Does that not that depend on cultural expectations and current protections?