Reposting from Prawfs:
I have written here and here about the pursuit of more objective methods of measuring experiences like pain. While research is moving along quite rapidly, neuroscientists are not yet doing the sorts of experiments we really need to know how well these techniques will work. For example, the best experiments for forensic purposes would have researchers blinded to subjects' background determine, say, which individual subjects are chronic back pain sufferers and which are not based only on brain imaging and associated number crunching. Most experiments are not designed to be so crisp and clean. Moreover, rarely do neuroscientists test how well subjects can develop countermeasures to try to fool whatever measurement technique is being investigated.
Private enterprise, however, has no plans to wait until scientists perfect methods of brain-based pain assessment. In fact, a recently-formed company, Chronic Pain Diagnostics, is already marketing a method of brain-based pain assessment associated with this patent. And there has been at least one worker's compensation case where an injured employee seriously explored hiring experts to provide brain-based evidence of pain (though the case settled). It's just a matter of time before courts and administrative agencies have to evaluate the merits of these new forms of evidence.
Comments