don's report archive
Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
Tuesday February 3, 2004
Yesterday I described discoveries in neuroscience that might soon enable a better understanding of the human brain---and varied manipulations that could benefit individuals and society. I reviewed the facts and, after running out of space, promised to write more about certain concerns raised by ethicists about risks that accompany these advances. That's today's topic. As a special bonus, you will also receive my opinion about all this!
The worry is about possible unintended consequences or potential hazards raised by brain scans and attendant manipulation possibilities. One such reservation is economic--only parents with exceptional resources will have access to the new and costly technologies. Since this is currently true for ownership of big houses, luxury cars, Super Bowl tickets and everything else on offer in a capitalist society, it does not seem insurmountable. Besides, many medical innovations that began as exclusive high-ticket items soon came to be seen as foundation entitlements (CAT scans, cosmetic surgery, contact lens, for examples).
Another reservation is that such breakthroughs could unsettle established systems for insuring fairness, justice, equal treatment and certain guaranteed rights. For instance, if a reliable truth-telling method were created, and this is one goal of many neuroscientists doing brain mapping research, would there still be a need for trials? There are MRI devices now in use able to discern truthfulness, or its absence, via brain scans. The latter, evidently, is a much more effective process than the old lie detectors. The latter were founded on measuring anxiety linked to the stress of prevaricating. With the new tools, a guilty defendant would be less able to bamboozle a judge and jury, even if he/she could afford top legal talent. The whole judicial system might need to be overhauled, in accord with the new methodologies, to insure consistency with constitutional guarantees.
A Stanford law professor at the Center for Biomedical Ethics has argued that many such concerns remain unresolved. Yet another ethical concern raised by the impending technologies is this: How much consideration should be given to reliable brain-scan findings? What if scans reveal diminished capacity, limited volition or inhibited free will? Genetic brain damage or injury-induced brain alteration might turn out to dispose an adult to commit certain crimes.
One 1986 study of death-row inmates revealed serious brain injury in all fifteen of the condemned on whom brain scans were conducted. Suppose such scans, studied over time with sufficient populations under properly controlled studies, demonstrate that some brain injuries predispose for violent acts? Will this new knowledge not be relevant to the criminal justice system, requiring extensive rewriting of codes and the like?
Finally, what about interventions to modify feeling states or achieve other objectives based on something neuroscientists call "pain-erase memory implant?" Does that sound enticing, desirable and consistent with YOUR values? Who will decide such matters?
My sense is that knowledge is better than ignorance, therefore, I welcome scientific expeditions to the frontier of brain understanding and yes, modification. Such explorations will enable scientists better to beneficially know and map, predict and possibly modify the human brain, perhaps even my own. Naturally, the possibilities of misuse exist for this and all new discoveries, yet what choice do we have but to rely on the better tendencies of human nature to do the right thing for the survival and evolution of the species?
All new knowledge and discovery is dangerous in the wrong hands (and brains). We have managed so far to endure, despite the predations of evil-doers (people with badly wired brains much in need of humanistic modification). Rather than attempt to suppress scientific advances, such as is being attempted by the Bush Administration in the area of stem-cell research, I think it better to rely on humans to do the right thing, for the most part, in due time!
Oh, did I mention the matter of someday being able to plant NEW memories in someone's brain? That's pretty exciting. Want to have the experience of climbing Mt. Everest without all the fuss of bundling up and trundling along and over those icy slopes? This kind of brain science advance, currently on the drawing boards, may be just the thing. The first planned applications are not for fun and games or virtual travel but rather to "overwrite" or excise the trauma of bad memories in order to heal wounded psyches. Again, sounds good to me, but maybe I'm just a modern day enthusiast for things Frankensteinian. Imagine gaining knowledge of one or more foreign languages or mastering a complex technical skill--all it might take is the installation of a microscopic chip installed in a certain part of that old brain of yours. Think of the tuition and time you could save.
All of these neurotechnologies are pinned not only on new ways to evolve scans and surgical interventions, but entail as well therapeutic drugs, chip implants and, no doubt, other creative interventions. As Hamilton notes in the Stanford Magazine article cited yesterday (and below), it will be your task, and that of bioethicists, politicians and others, to understand and weigh the advantages while foreseeing and safeguarding against any troubling consequences they would spark. Hamilton suggests, and I whole-heartedly concur, that the "benefits of the new may far outweigh their threats. Yet, as we probe ever deeper into the three-pound universe in our heads, surely the manipulation of what we've learned 'the hard way' would be one of the most chilling intrusions of all." (Joan Hamilton, "If They Could Read Your Mind," Stanford Magazine, January/February, 2004.)
Considering the need for manipulations to my own three-pounder, I eagerly await the first series of choices the neuroscientists and other deep brain thinkers bring to us in the not-so-distant future.
Be well. Look on the bright side of life.
(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of effective decisions. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)
(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)
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