Neuroethics & Law Blog

"Seeing" With Your Ears

"Quirks & Quarks" a radio show on Canada's CBC has an interesting segment on technology that helps blind people to navigate the world by translating images into sounds.  The program explains how images from portable, tiny video cameras can be translated into sounds by modifying pitch, volume, and the like to represent features of the visual world.  Obviously, the technology is imperfect, but according to the program, it can enable a blind person to distinguish a soccer ball from a football using sound alone!  Brain scanning suggests that people using the technology are activating parts of the brain that are associated with vision in sighted people.

You can listen to the program and hear a sample of the technology here. (Thanks Boing Boing).

A Step Toward Suspended Animation

The Washington Post reports here on success in inducing a state of hibernation in mice.  The article notes that "suspended animation has remained largely the stuff of science fiction books and movies about space travelers being frozen to survive long journeys or terminally ill people hibernating until a cure could be found."  However, with success in inducing hibernation in mammals, clinical use in humans may be in the distant horizon. Here's an excerpt:

Scientists have induced a state close to suspended animation in a mammal for the first time, a long-sought achievement that could lead to a host of medical advances for people.

By exposing mice to hydrogen sulfide gas, the researchers managed to place the animals into a condition equivalent to hibernation, which could be quickly reversed without apparently harming the creatures simply by letting them breathe fresh air.

. . .

Slowing metabolic functions to a near standstill preserves organs and other tissues. That could, for example, give critically ill patients awaiting organ transplants more time, keep patients suffering severe blood loss from car accidents or gunshot wounds alive long enough to get transfusions and surgery, minimize damage from heart attacks and strokes, and help minimize the side effects of cancer chemotherapy and radiation.

For those unwilling to wait for this technology, you can try cryonics and keep your fingers crossed (for eternity?).  See here.  And here's the New York Times version of the Washington Post article.

Peering Deeper into the Brain

The New York Times reports today on analytic techniques to make inferences about brain function at a finer resolution than is directly visible from functional magnetic resonance imaging.  This work is clearly at the beginning stages, but the possibilities are enormous.  I've excerpted the more sensational parts of the article, so click on the full link above before it expires:

By peering not into the eyes but into the brain, an improved scanning technique has enabled scientists to figure out what people are looking at - even, in some cases, when they are not aware of what they have seen.

The advance, reported today, shows that the scanners may be better able than previously supposed to probe the border between conscious and unconscious thought and even, in certain circumstances, to read people's state of mind.

The scanning technique, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, is a more powerful version of a technique widely used in hospitals. It can show which regions of the brain are actively performing some task, but until now has lacked the resolution to track specific groups of neurons, as the functional units of the brain are called.

. . .

The achievement of Dr. Tong's statistical technique is that it allows the scanners in effect to infer what is happening just below their level of resolution. "The real breakthrough is getting down to the resolution of the column," Dr. Boynton said, adding that it may eventually be possible to apply the technique to the whole brain to analyze patterns of thought.

KZSU Stanford Radio Interview

This Monday night, April 25, at 6pm Pacific time, I will be interviewed on KZSU Stanford Radio.  I will be speaking about neuroethics and the law and perhaps, too, about this blog.  If you don't live near Palo Alto, San Francisco, or San Jose, you can listen via internet by following this link.

Apes and Human Nature

The AP reports here on a long-term study to examine bonobo culture and language-like abilities.  Here's an excerpt:

Bonobos, a species of ape from the Congo, are the most like humans, Savage-Rumbaugh said. They constantly vocalize "as though they are conversing" and often walk upright. . . .

The bonobos will be able to cook in their own kitchen, tap vending machines for snacks, go for walks in the woods and communicate with researchers through computer touchscreens. The decor in their 18-room home includes an indoor waterfall and climbing areas 30 feet high.

The longevity of the project is unlike any other.

The animals, which have a life span of up to about 50 years, will be allowed to mate and have families — and develop cultures that will be studied for generations to come, Savage-Rumbaugh said.

In an unrelated story, here is a blurb on the twelve-day-old gorilla who was born to Timu, a "test tube" gorilla.

LSE Debate Series: "State of Mind"

I recently returned from the AAAS conference on neuroethics at MIT (see here).  Overall, it was an excellent program with lots of information and diverse perspectives and plenty of opportunities to actively participate.

Speaking of neuroethics-related gatherings, the LSE is hosting a series of public debates on "representations of the mind in science, art and popular culture."  Here's the website and here's an excerpt (via Mind Hacks):

State of Mind is a new artist's project at the BIOS centre at LSE supported by a People's Award from the Wellcome Trust. Initially inspired by current scientific developments in imaging brain activity, artist Ruth Maclennan will work alongside BIOS researchers to explore the ways in which the mind, as physical and cultural entity, has been or might in future be represented and manipulated and with what scientific, aesthetic, cultural and political implications. 

For centuries artists, writers and scientists have attempted to describe and visualise the workings of the mind and its 'container', the brain. Advances in brain imaging seem to promise that at last we will be able to see the mind when we look at the brain. This investigative and speculative art project will consider diverse approaches to the 'mind-body problem' from memory theatres, to the 'brains-on-stalks' of science fiction, to contemporary MRI scan imagery.

Lastly, here's some information on "BIOS," LSE's new program in biosciences.

"Nothing Deep About Depression"

Not too long ago, I posted articles on creativity and psychiatric disorder. (See here and here).  In this Sunday's New York Times, Peter Kramer discourages the view that depression creates beneficial side effects in the form of artistic and literary insight.  He begins by noting a recurring question he received when on book tours for Listening to Prozac:

Invariably, as soon as I had finished my remarks, a hand would shoot up. A hearty, jovial man would rise and ask -- always the same question -- ''What if Prozac had been available in van Gogh's time?''

I understood what was intended, a joke about a pill that makes people blandly chipper. The New Yorker had run cartoons along these lines -- Edgar Allan Poe, on Prozac, making nice to a raven. Below the surface humor were issues I had raised in my own writing. Might a widened use of medication deprive us of insight about our condition? But with repetition, the van Gogh question came to sound strange. Facing a man in great pain, headed for self-mutilation and death, who would withhold a potentially helpful treatment?

. . .

Asked whether we are content to eradicate arthritis, no one says, ''Well, the end-stage deformation, yes, but let's hang on to tennis elbow, housemaid's knee and the early stages of rheumatoid disease.'' Multiple sclerosis, acne, schizophrenia, psoriasis, bulimia, malaria -- there is no other disease we consider preserving. But eradicating depression calls out the caveats.

Hidden Motives

Scientific American Frontiers, on PBS, has recently broadcast, "Hidden Motives," an excellent introduction to some recent advances in neuroscience that are relevant to neuroethics.  The program discusses neuromarketing, ultimatum-like games observed under fMRI, and race and gender bias in implicit association tests.  The host, Alan Alda, even narrates an old clip from MASH that illustrates a familiar ethical conundrum.  Follow this link and click on Hidden Motives 1, 2, and 3 (or you can watch the entire episode).

Awareness During Execution

Talkleft.com reports here on a study in The Lancet suggesting that most prisoners executed by lethal injection are given less anesthesia than pre-operative surgery patients and that some executed prisoners have levels of anesthesia that suggest conscious awareness during the process of execution (via CrimProf Blog).

Real-Life Bionics

Six million dollars doesn't buy what it used to.  Nevertheless, advances in bionics are already helping older people and those with disabilities perform activities in daily life.  One new technology involves "robot suits" that serve as exoskeletons to provide power to assist motion.  Here's the story in New Scientist, and here's an excerpt:

Dubbed HAL, or hybrid assistive limb, the latest versions of the suit will be unveiled this June at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan, which opened last month. A commercial product is slated for release by the end of the year.

HAL is the result of 10 years' work by Yoshiyuki Sankai of the University of Tsukuba in Japan, and integrates mechanics, electronics, bionics and robotics in a new field known as cybernics. The most fully developed prototype, HAL 3, is a motor-driven metal "exoskeleton" that you strap onto your legs to power-assist leg movements. A backpack holds a computer with a wireless network connection, and the batteries are on a belt.

Two control systems interact to help the wearer stand, walk and climb stairs. A "bio-cybernic" system uses bioelectric sensors attached to the skin on the legs to monitor signals transmitted from the brain to the muscles. It can do this because when someone intends to stand or walk, the nerve signal to the muscles generates a detectable electric current on the skin's surface. These currents are picked up by the sensors and sent to the computer, which translates the nerve signals into signals of its own for controlling electric motors at the hips and knees of the exoskeleton. It takes a fraction of a second for the motors to respond accordingly, and in fact they respond fractionally faster to the original signal from the brain than the wearer's muscles do.

. . .

Sankai has had many requests for the devices from people with brain and spinal injuries, so he is planning to extend the suit's applications to include medical rehabilitation. The first commercial suits are likely to cost between 1.5 and 2 million yen ($14,000 to $19,000).

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the pointer).

Making Money the New-Fashioned Way

The New York Times has two recent articles on how to avoid (and how to exploit) cognitive biases that lead us to depart from the economic behavior of an idealized rational actor.  Here, the NYT discusses our failure to save adequately for retirement:

This behavioral quirk has long stumped mainstream economists, who tend to assume that people are generally rational beings who have read the Aesop fable about the ant and the grasshopper and understand the virtues of thrift.

Yet over the last couple of years, researchers from fields as disparate as economics, psychology and neuroscience have come together to shed new light on the problem. Armed with brain scans and economic models, they are finding that the reluctance to set aside for tomorrow may be rooted in traits that were carved by evolution, hard-wiring our brain to prefer immediate gratification. The research also suggests that, when properly re-engineered, our behavioral peculiarities can be harnessed to make us save more.

Here, the NYT discusses mutual funds that are designed to exploit the cognitive biases that may infect financial markets:

"Traditional finance theory tells us markets are efficient and rational," said Silvio Tarca, one of the managers of the Morgan funds. "Behavioral finance tells us that human psychology affects investment decisions. Irrational behavior gives rise to market inefficiencies, and our investment process tries to capitalize on those inefficiencies."

A Step Toward the "Experience Machine"

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick described a hypothetical "experience machine" designed to give its user any sort of experience he might want (for example, the experience of being a movie star at opening night or the experience of composing a great sonata).  We're not there yet, nor are we even close.  However, Sony has recently patented a technique that is designed to take us there--someday.  The technique uses ultrasound to transmit sensory data directly to the brain.  Here's the story and here's an excerpt:

The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non-invasive. It describes a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. This could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear, the patent claims.

While brain implants are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the only non-invasive ways of manipulating the brain remain crude. A technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation can activate nerves by using rapidly changing magnetic fields to induce currents in brain tissue. However, magnetic fields cannot be finely focused on small groups of brain cells, whereas ultrasound could be.

If the method described by Sony really does work, it could have all sorts of uses in research and medicine, even if it is not capable of evoking sensory experiences detailed enough for the entertainment purposes envisaged in the patent.

Surveillance Cameras and the Dehydrated Deliveryman

You may be familiar with this Kafkaesque story about a delivery man in New York who got stuck in an elevator without food and water for three days.  See here in the NYT before the link expires.  Else, see here or here. The story has lots of twists and turns, not the least of which is the fact that, even though the police were "diligently" searching the building, the deliveryman was not spotted on a surveillance camera in the stuck elevator.  Here's an excerpt from the NYT:

Mr. Chen has said that he called repeatedly on the intercom over the weekend, even speaking to security personnel on five or six occasions. A spokesman for the building's manager, Don Miller, said the first anyone was aware of him was on Tuesday morning.

New questions over the state of the elevator surveillance arose yesterday. For instance, even after Mr. Chen['s] call for help was heard Monday morning, security personnel looking for him on the monitor could not see him, Mr. Miller said.

The video quality is far from superior, according to a reporter's brief examination of the monitors yesterday. There are three monitors in the security room, two of which are divided into 16 images apiece. One of those images, slightly smaller than a playing card, shows Car No. 2 in a dimly lit feed.

After you read the article, I think you'll see that it's hard to tell what happened and what version of the story is most credible.  It will be interesting to see, however, whether any sort of cognitive bias led to a failure to recognize the deliveryman in the surveillance cameras or led to a failure to pay adequate attention to the cameras in the first place.

American Mania, Part II

Recently, I posted here about a NYT story on "hypomania," described there as a mental condition involving "currents of mental energy and concentration that are less reckless than full-blown manic frenzies, and unspoiled, in many cases, by subsequent gloom." 

The story focused on Peter Whybrow's new book American Mania.  Sunday's NYT features a book review by William Saletan of both American Mania and John Gartner's book The Hypomanic Edge.  The book review is available here.  Here's a NYT link to the first chapter in "The Hypomanic Edge."  Lastly, the AJOB Editors Blog offers a perspective on the author of the book review, William Saletan, and his bioethics column in Slate over here.

NELB Roundup

In this NELB roundup, there are several links you may find interesting:

• "Childhood Deficits in the Cerebellum May Be Linked to Adult Alcoholism" at ScienceDaily;
• Possible environmental toxins that precipitate neurological disease at MemCheck;
• New food additives that mimic the taste of sugar or salt at the New York Times;
• "Neuroanthropology" at Mind Hacks;
• Neuroscience-themed films, also at Mind Hacks;