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By Molly Ann Kluck Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons . When my neuroethics mentor approached me with a publication from Trends in Cognitive Science called “Functional Connectivity of the Human Brain in Utero” (1) in hand, I was immediately delighted by the idea of performing an ethical analysis on the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) on fetuses in utero. As of right now, I’m still conducting this ethical analysis.  Using fMRI to look at human brains as they develop in utero is groundbreaking for a couple reasons. For one, there is a vast difference between the fMRI method currently used to investigate developing brains and previous methods that were used to examine fetal brain development. Research on developing brains had utilized preterm neonates, or babies born prematurely. While these data are valuable, there are issues with validity associated with this method: early exposure to an abnormal environment (e.g. being in the intensive care unit, where many pre...

By Jonah Queen Image courtesy of  Pixabay . As neurotechnology advances and our understanding of the brain increases, there is a growing debate about if, and how, neuroscience can play a role in the legal system. In particular, some are asking if these technologies could ever be used to accomplish things that humans have so far not been able to, such as performing accurate lie detection and predicting future behavior. For September’s Neuroethics and Neuroscience in the News event, Dr. Eyal Aharoni of Georgia State University spoke about his research on whether biomarkers might improve our ability to predict the risk of recidivism in criminal offenders. The results were published in a 2013 paper titled “ Neuroprediction of future rearrest 1 ," which was reported in the media with headlines such as “ Can we predict recidivism with a brain scan? ” The study reports evidence that brain scans could potentially improve offender risk assessment. At the event, Dr. Aharoni led a discus...

By Sol Lee This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016. Sol Lee studies Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University. As a pre-med student, he is enthusiastic about primary care and global health concerns. Sol is currently doing research on glutamate receptors in Parkinson’s Disease in the Smith Lab. Ever since its inception in 2002 [1], neuromarketing has been a rapidly developing and highly controversial field. Neuromarketing employs neuroscience research in order to advertise products and services and is primarily utilized by companies to better understand the brain’s responses to marketing stimuli and advertising [2]. Methods include analysis of galvanic skin response, which can be used to measure stress, and eye tracking, which measures eye location and movement. Common medical research techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain ac...

by David Michaels The following post is part of a special series emerging from Contemporary Issues in Neuroethics, a graduate-level course out of Emory University’s Center for Ethics.  David is a student at Emory University working on his Master's degree in Bioethics. After completing his graduate studies he will be attending medical school in Texas.   Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have the ability to read minds? If you're like me, you've daydreamed about possessing this superpower. It's easy to imagine all of the fascinating ways you could exploit this gift to your liking. But after a while this myopic perspective is turned on its head when we imagine our own thoughts being read.   Quickly, almost instantaneously, we conclude with absolute certainty, "Nope, absolutely not - the power to read minds is a bad idea..." Some thoughts are probably best left alone in the mysterious impenetrable fortress of privacy--our mind. However, recent break...

*Editor’s note: You can catch a lengthier discussion of this topic at our Jan 29th session of Neuroscience and Neuroethics in the News . When people think about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the courtroom, many often think of mind reading or colorful images of psychopathic brains. Portable fMRI machines capable of reading our personal thoughts pop into our heads and arouse a fear that one day a neuroscientist could reasonably discern our deepest secrets through a brain scan. Despite recent scholarship that suggests a world filled with covert fMRI lie detection devices is far away (if ever attainable), I think further attention should be paid to how people think about neuroscience and interpret scientific information that draws on brain-laden language, particularly in the courtroom (Farah, Hutchinson, Phelps, & Wagner, 2014). This topic is of special interest to me as it is the focus of my undergraduate research thesis. I also think it should be relevant to neuro...

As an undergraduate, I took several introductory level philosophy classes while majoring in neuroscience. Some of it I could appreciate and most of it went over my head, but a thought that kept nagging me was, “haven’t neuroscientists solved all of these issues by now?” It was only after I had worked in neuroscience laboratories for a few years that I began to realize just how qualified all of our statements had to be due to the plethora of limitations that go along with any result. I began to wince anytime I heard someone use the word “proof” (only salesmen use the term “clinically proven”, but don’t get me started on that…). It seems clear to me now that, for the most part, natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars are really all working toward the same goal just in different, albeit complimentary ways. At the first “Neuroscience, ethics and the news” journal club of the semester, Lindsey Grubbs, a PhD student in Emory University’s English Department, facilitated ...

By Carolyn C. Meltzer, MD Dr. Carolyn C. Meltzer is a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine Departments of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Neurology. She is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ― George Orwell , 1984 In the iconic geopolitical thriller “ The Manchurian Candidate ,” advanced mind control techniques are used on a Korean War prisoner to turn him into an assassin. As we move into an era in which functional neuroimaging may be applied in ways akin to “mind reading,” such as applied to lie detection and economic choices, this fictional work more closely mimics reality. Functional neuroimaging tools have helped us to tease out neuronal networks and to better understand how we think and act in health and disease. With the exception of few specific instances of validated clinical use (such a...