Neuroethics & Law Blog

Polygamy and Wine Consumption

The Freakonomics Blog reports here on an interesting study exploring why there seems to be lower alcohol consumption among polygamous communities than monogamous communities.

PEBS Neuroethics News Roundup from JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: Moral Behavior is not what it seems, PNAS In The Popular Press: Wild Chimps, Stick Dolls: What's At Play Here? NPR The Gift of Endless Memory, CBS News What students on ketamine tell us about schizophrenia, New Scientist In Map of Brain Junction, Avenues to Answers, The New York Times The U-bend of life, The Economist Breastfeeding boosts schoolboys' brains, not girls', New Scientist   Neuroimaging Helps to Predict Which Dyslexics Will Learn to Read, Science Daily What makes a face look alive? Study says it's in the eyes, Eurekalert! Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges, The New York Times Woman remembers every detail of her life, New York Post Creativity vies with language in brain, New Scientist Beautiful People Convey Personality Traits Better During First Impressions, Science Daily Todd Machover: From Guitar Hero to cybernetic opera, Culture Lab From the Academic Literature: Stimulation of the rat subthalamic nucleus is neuroprotective following significant nigral dopamine neuron loss, Neurobiology of Disease Fear: A frightful circuit, Nature Reviews Neuroscience Exploring the Impact of Ketamine on the Experience of Illusory Body Ownership, Biological Psychiatry Second brain death examination may negatively affect organ donation, Neurology How instructed knowledge modulates the neural systems of reward learning, PNAS Towards a scientific concept of free will as a biological trait: spontaneous actions and decision-making in invertebrates, Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences Breastfeeding Duration and Academic Achievement at 10 Years, Pediatrics When the zebra loses its stripes: Semantic priming in early Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia, Cortex Expert Cognitive Control and Individual Differences Associated with Frontal and Parietal White Matter Microstructure, Journal of Neuroscience

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the  Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup from JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: Voodoo Correlations: Two Years Later, The Neurocritic In The Popular Press: Insights Give Hope for New Attack on Alzheimer’s, The New York Times To Tell the Truth: Brain Scans Are Not Ready for the Courtroom, Scientific American Fearless woman lacks key part of brain, ScienceNow It's All About Me: But Is Narcissism A Disorder?, NPR Free will similar in animals, humans-but not so free, BBC Physician Attitudes towards Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement, Neuroethics at the Core Crop raiding African elephants are ‘stressed out’, BBC Earth News Bereaved animals grieve--if their lifestyle allows it, New Scientist Smartphone Technology Improves Prosthetic Limbs, Science Daily Decoding the Human Brain, With Help From a Fly, The New York Times Video: Smart Drug Promises Miracles in Limitless Teaser, Wired Lots of baseball players take ADD drugs, Hardball Talk Alzheimer’s Disease a New Target for Deep Brain Stimulation, The Dana Foundation Henry Rollins, 'Born to Rage' hunt anger's genetic roots, USA Today Fish Have Feelings (And They Can Be Seen In Their DNA), Observations of a Nerd From the Academic Literature: Moral Behavior is not what it seems, PNAS Reply to Harris and Chan: Moral judgment is more than rational deliberation, PNAS People believe they have more free will than others, PNAS Differential brain activity states during the perception and nonperception of illusory motion as revealed by magnetoencephalography, PNAS Neuropeptide S Enhances Memory During the Consolidation Phase and Interacts with Noradrenergic Systems in the Brain, Neuropsychopharmacology Sex differences in neural responses to s tress and alcohol context cues, Human Brain Mapping Finding your voice: A singing lesson from functional imaging, Human Brain Mapping Physician Attitudes towards Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement: Safety Concerns Are Paramount, PLoSONE

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the  Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup from JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article:

• Portraits of the Mind, The New York Times
  

In The Popular Press:

• Dan Dennett- “Free Will, Responsibility, and the Brain” (Video), The SItuationist
  
• Voodoo Correlations: Two Years Later, The Neurocritic
  
• Depressed about the antidepressant pipeline? New compounds go beyond the synapse, Spoonful of Medicine
  
• 'A robot is like a friend' in Japan (Video), BBC News
  
• MS could be reversed by activating stem cells in brain, new study suggests, The Guardian
  
• An Odyssey Through the Brain, Illuminated by a Rainbow, The New York Times
  
• Ants lead way to speedier computer networks, Nature News
  
• Is good luck at gambling all in the genes?, Nature News
  
• Babies and young children are immune from 'catching' yawns, The Telegraph
  
• Are you really smarter than a Neanderthal?, New Scientist
  
• Politics and Eye Movement: Liberals Focus Their Attention on 'Gaze Cues' Much Differently Than Conservatives Do, Science Daily
  
• How Taking an Active Role in Learning Enhances Memory, Science Daily
  
• 'i-Dosing': Can You Download a Drug High?, TIME
  
• Seeing Ourselves Through The Study of Apes, NPR
  

From the Academic Literature:

• Perinatal photoperiod imprints the circadian clock, Nature Neuroscience
  
• The surface area of human V1 predicts the subjective experience of object size, Nature Neuroscience
• Human Posterior Parietal Cortex Flexibly Determines Reference Frames for Reaching Based on Sensory Context, Neuron
  
• Human Posterior Parietal Cortex Flexibly Determines Reference Frames for Reaching Based on Sensory Context, Neuron
  
• Paradoxical False Memory for Objects After Brain Damage, Science
  
• Neuropsychological impairment corresponds with poor understanding of informed consent disclosures in persons diagnosed with major depression, Psychiatry Research
  
• Moral Enhancement and Freedom, Bioethics
  
• Dissociation between manipulation and conceptual knowledge of object use in the supramarginalis gyrus, Human Brain Mapping
  
• The implementation of verbal instructions: An fMRI study, Human Brain Mapping
• Does Marriage Inhibit Antisocial Behavior?, Archives of General Psychiatry
  
• Neural correlates of cognitive dissonance and choice-induced preference change, PNAS
  
• Neuropsychological impairment corresponds with poor understanding of informed consent disclosures in persons diagnosed with major depression, Psychiatry Research
  

The Neurocritic on "Voodoo Correlations:Two Years Later"

Here's a link to the Neurocritic on "Voodoo Correlations:Two Years Later."  It has lots of interesting discussion and great links, not only about the "Voodoo Correlations" paper but also about the recent controversy over NASA's claim to have identified a life form that doesn't require phosphorus.  In particular, the Neurocritic notes how the blogosphere has sped up discussion and analysis of scientific papers to sometimes breakneck speed.

(via the PEBS Neuroethics News Roundup)

Ethics and the Brain Symposium at the Univ. of Missouri

See below and here for information about an upcoming symposium at the University of Missouri.  Steven Pinker will give the keynote address:

For several decades now, neuroscientists have used technology to produce images of the brain in action.  But what do such pictures tell us?  Should they change the way we think about personal identity and free will?  Can they reveal whether a person is capable of making moral decisions, or whether a person is telling the truth?  If so, brain imaging technology seems to hold great promise for the criminal justice system.  However, allowing brain scans to be used as evidence in trials for conviction or sentencing raises many questions about the nature of responsibility, the nature of fairness, and the public perception of science and technology.

The 2011 LSSP symposium, Ethics & the Brain, will bring to campus seven leading researchers from the fields of neuroscience, law, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and theology to discuss these issues. 

The symposium will take place on the flagship campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.  It is free and open to the university community and the public and is designed to encourage dialogue across methodologies and backgrounds.

Speakers:

Keynote:

Steven Pinker (Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology; Harvard University) is world-renowned for his work examining language and mind, and social and moral decision-making, from an evolutionary perspective.  His best-selling books include How the Mind Works (1997) and The Blank Slate (2002).  Time Magazine named Pinker one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004. 

Patricia Churchland (Professor of Philosophy; University of California, San Diego; Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute) is a pioneer in the field of neurophilosophy. Her recent work focuses on the implications of neuroscience for our understanding of rationality, morality, and the self.

Joseph Dumit (Director of Science and Technology Studies; Professor of Anthropology; University of California, Davis) is a biomedical anthropologist who studies the complex entanglements of medicine and society, with a particular focus on brain imaging.

Adam Kolber (Professor of Law; Brooklyn Law School) is the founder of the Neuroethics & Law Blog and a leading scholar of the possible implications of neuroscience for the legal system.  He writes at the intersection of criminal law, health law, and neuroethics.

Nancey Murphy (Professor of Christian Philosophy; Fuller Theological Seminary) is a philosopher and theologian who has written about the implications of neuroscience for thinking about moral responsibility, moral personhood, and free will in relation to biological processes. 

Jesse Prinz (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy; City University of New York, Graduate Center) studies the cognitive and neurobiological foundations of the mind, focusing particularly on emotional, experiential, and cultural contributions to thought and morality.

Adrian Raine (Richard Perry University Professor in the Departments of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology; University of Pennsylvania), an internationally renowned expert in the emerging field of neurocriminology, integrates neuroscientific and social perspectives in the prediction and explanation of violent behavior, particularly in psychopaths.

"It’s Not Just What You Do, But What’s on Your Mind"

Recently published in Neuroethics:

It’s Not Just What You Do, But What’s on Your Mind: A Review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s “Experiments in Ethics”

by Liane Young and Rebecca Saxe

Abstract

What is the impact of science on philosophy? In “Experiments in Ethics”, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses this question for morality and ethics. Appiah suggests that scientific results may undermine moral intuitions by undermining our confidence in the actual sources of our intuitions, or by invalidating our factual assumptions about the causes of human behavior. Appiah worries that scientific results showing situational causes on human behavior force us to abandon the intuition, formalized in virtue ethics, that what matters is “who you are on the inside”. In this review, we agree with Appiah that scientific results at once force and do not force us to abandon this intuition. We also propose that Appiah’s worry is due in part to an over-simplified conception of “internal causes”, shared widely among scientists and philosophers. By re-introducing the true richness of internal causes invoked in moral judgments, we hope to relax the tension between scientific results and moral intuitions. Ultimately, we propose that science can undermine and constrain but cannot affirm our commitment to specific moral intuitions.

"Introduction: Appiah’s Experiments in Ethics"

The current issue of Neuroethics is devoted to Anthony Appiah's Experiments in Ethics.  The first entry is an introduction to the special issue by Neil Levy.  More articles to follow....

Facilitation of Law and Mind Sciences Experiments

See here.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup from JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: Beyond Understanding, New York Times Opinion Pages In The Popular Press: Portraits of the Mind, The New York Times Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder, The New York Times Neuroprediction, Violence, and the Law, The Law and Neuroscience Blog Dogs Have Bigger Brains Than Cats Because They Are More Sociable, Research Finds, Science Daily Do 'Traffic Lights' in the Brain Direct Our Actions? Delayed Inhibition Between Neurons Identified as Possible Basis for Decision Making, Science Daily No mere gargoyles: Schizophrenic sculpture, New Scientist   From the Academic Literature: Wrath of God: religious primes and punishment, Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences Encephalization is not a universal macroevolutionary phenomenon in mammals but is associated with sociality, PNAS Neural signatures of autism, PNAS Female genomic response to mate information, PNAS

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the  Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.