Neuroethics & Law Blog

"Altering Moral Judgments with Magnetism" (Davenport)

"Research of the last couple decades has shown that injuries to a part of the brain called the right
temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), located at the brain’s surface above and behind the right ear, can change a patient’s moral judgments. When these patients are asked to answer morally challenging questions that weigh the life of one person against others, they consistently make utilitarian decisions without feeling the least bit uneasy. Their moral judgments about life and death, so vexing to most of us, become clinical and routine.

Researchers have recently found that they can induce a similar effect using magnetism (transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS) to disrupt RTPJ activity. When participants were exposed to magnetic “bursts” from a TMS device, their judgments about what is morally permissible significantly changed. For example, they were more likely to say that intending to harm another was morally permissible if the other person luckily avoided becoming a victim; they considered the intention of the first person to be irrelevant.  The effect was only temporary, but the implications are massive. Most of us consider moral judgment a higher order thought process, but this research shows that it can be tweaked by a weak magnetic field in a matter of minutes." - One of David DiSalvo's Five Big Developments in Neuroscience to Watch, via.  

Full article: Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments by Liane Young, Joan Albert Camprodon, Marc Hauser, Alvaro Pascual-Leone and Rebecca Saxe, here. 

Image: my neurons.

"Criminal Minds: Adrian Raine thinks brain scans can identify children who may become killers" (Davenport)

In this article, Adrian Raine, Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminology at University of Pennsylvania, says brain scans may predict antisocial behavior before it happens, thereby possibly identify killers before they kill. When they are children. He is known for his pioneering work in the science of neurodevelopmental criminology.

"Society has always wondered about “bad seeds,” people who seem to be possessed by devils. But what is emerging from this research is a cluster of biological markers that plant the bad seed in the brain. More striking, they appear to predict antisocial behavior even before it happens.  (…)  In adult offenders, juvenile delinquents, and even younger children, dozens of studies have pointed to brain features that seem to reduce fear, impair decision making, and blunt emotional reactions to others’ distress." 

The features were several neuroanatomical abnormalities such as both orbitofrontal regions and the amygdala appearing smaller than normal, and a enlarged corpus callosum being present. Raine is quick to acknowledge the rather large amount of ethical questions involved here as well as environmental effects and neuroplasticity. He is the first to state, “…we don’t want to say that biology is destiny or put a label on anyone exhibiting these markers”, so it seems to be about early detection and possible/preventive treatment. He is now doing studies to “ …see if psychotherapy or a diet rich in brain-protective supplements can reduce chances of antisocial acts.”  Raine is well known for his longitudinal studies that trace “physical patterns in children to conduct problems in adulthood”.      He continues:

“I think there’s no longer any question, scientifically, that there’s an association between the brain and criminal behavior. We’re beyond the point of debating that,” says Raine. “Every study can be criticized on methodology. But when you look at the whole, at all the different designs, it’s just hard to deny there is something going on with biology.”

The big 'IF'

Surely knowing this work may elicit a skeptic or negative type response, Raine phrases the question as if we are discussing the identification of any medical condition: “So if I could tell you, as a parent, that your child has a 75-percent chance of becoming a criminal, wouldn’t you want to know and maybe have the chance to do something about it?”   Via

Image, article, originally posted at neuropsydoctor8.