That’s me again, trying to justify myself… I suppose that the grand difficulty when applying laws or The Declaration to neuroscientific issues comes from the idea that human beings are just a combination of physical and biological factors. That we may add certain properties to these physical and biological aspects but those adds would come from our  environment, our  moral values, motives and personal wishes – all imposed features, something that we shouldn’t be able to choose. That’s YOU! Not a random entity. Then, how an individual may be considered responsible for their actions if they can’t really have a control of their actions? Where does the concept of free will fit in? Aren’t free will just a command coming from my brain? But one can possibly consider some components that would resists to this supposed irresistible force in case the individual possess some rational strength to intervene. And these components should be taken in consideration. That’s why the psychopathy diagnose is not considered an attenuating in criminal judgments; it’s taken that those individuals are possessed by conscience of their actions. I suppose this illusional free will issue is really relevant, e.g. the prefrontal cortex when damaged by a lesion or a tumor may lead the person to have moral and ethical problems or even it’s decreased metabolism may lead to a violent behaviour, however, it’s not excused by a criminal or violent action even being an important factor in a criminal context.  The article 5 is about individual autonomy. But For persons who are not capable of exercising autonomy, special measures are to be taken to protect their rights and interests. Which is the case. So, the article 7 and 8 should be applied and finally article 27 should provide the complementary interests of public safety, for the investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, for the protection of public health or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Although, I must confess that I sometimes feel that the act should be judged only by its effects in others rather than the motives and intentions of the agent. :X

The accuracy of the Brain Imaging tool is still too imprecise and sensationalism as Christopher deCharms looks inside the brain helps to decrease even more it’s credibility. It reminds me of one of the Language and Cognition courses that we attended at graduation; course’s bibliography consisted of all the Oliver Sacks’s books, a great neurologist , but he suffers from the same “sensationalism” problem when it comes to report his clinical cases, he only shows the top of the iceberg. The fact that a man – who was blind basically his whole life – reaches almost insanity when regain his sight is not an extraordinary curiosity when you understand that vision as well as smell, hearing, are not properties of the eyes, nose and ears per se but first and foremost brain’s processes. But it was apparently so extraordinaire that it even reached Hollywood ! * although, I must admit that I’m still impressed by Sacks’s book The man who mistook his wife for a hat (yes, it is exactly what is seems), but I’m sure it’s just because I don’t have the biological knowledge of it’s mechanism * Another example of sensationalism affecting the credibility of a field is the misunderstanding of the neurolinguistics concept (the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neuropsychology, and computer science) turned to the horrid neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)  (a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them” and “a system of alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour). Guess this is a case to proceed with ethics when reporting a research’s result and this is really well presented by Poldrack in the article Neuroimaging: Separating the Promise from the Pipe Dreams.

So, I suppose that we should talk about the problem that we are facing NOW – that we should be really careful when given an anatomical correlation to a feeling, a fact, etc for we still have not a single certainty when using this tool e.g.The fact that the amygdala, for example, responds to threat does not mean that activity in this area signifies that a person is feeling threatened. That would be true only if threat were the only thing that activates the amygdala, and we know this is not the case. I understand that all this noise may also come from a Brain-Imaging-for-Dummies effort  but the researchers must have not this attitude of David Copperfield with the naive public/audience. And right now, I’m not preoccupied with the future – Successful Brain Imaging and consequently Privacy – instead, I do get worried with all this colorful functional magnetic resonance imaging hanging by the  hands of precipitant researchers longing for a publication at Nature or Scientific American.

And finally, even if someday a physician could possible identify a killer with this kind of technology, would you think that society should be warned about it? Why? Why a criminal defense attorney knowingly does not warn the society of his guilty client? So yes, I do have a LOT of trouble applying all this law concepts , all this human rights concepts… HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!

(I must confess that I wasn’t expecting this course posts – to be so massively “into humanities”, I mean, so much “ethics”, little “neuro”. I know that almost all colleagues are from Humanities Background) – I myself came from a Linguistics graduation, but at that time all that cognitive enhancement talk was given me the chill’s; I couldn’t help but had that Gattaca Feeling . But yes, Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it – Salvador Dali! And I was just in need of a course on neuroanatomy or physiology to take me from my “wonder world of theory” and try to learn how the body works and what it is capable of. Now that I’m SUPPOSEDLY able to see theory and practice I agree with the authors when they said that we are not the same after a glass of wine, a trip, that we are already trying to improve ourselves by doing plastic surgeries – just loooooved Steven Pinker’s comments on modern, post-modern aesthetics notion – and the other part think that’s ok, but uh-oh, we shouldn’t improve further cause further is bad, is unworthy…based on what? Religion? False morals? We should close our eyes to a possible link between breast implant and risk of committing suicide but found it completely odd that a student may want to enlarge…his…work memory, cognitive capacity?! Well, I had an experience with a close friend who is really brilliant but the fact that “I’m the second best at my laboratory and I have this need to be the top first in everything not to feel miserable” lead her to try and get Ritalin… THAT is pathological and she should get to a psychiatry instead, as well as women that are more prone to suicide or start drug and/or alcohol abuse BEFORE receiving a breast implant.

The genomic technology is a marvelous contribution to neurosciences and it enables us to progress in the genetics of psychiatric disorders. The previous knowledge of biological markers in an individual helps to better diagnosis the psychiatric disorders. With such information:

• physiopathology and genetics may help to identify  diseases subtypes, increasingly the clinical homogeneity of the sample and defining phenotypes (any observable characteristic or trait of an organism) more accessible to the investigation, alas! selecting candidate genes;
• more efficient medication might be produced by pharmacogenetic;
• more knowledge of the biological bases and improvement of new treatments.

…ahhhhhh, all is marvelous, all is about theory and practice! And just let me give you an example of a friend’s PhD at neurosciences program; she’s studying IF there’s possible links  between sexual aggressors and genetic markers.  She’ll conclude it at the Faculty at Humanities Sciences of UFMG and she’ll probably receive death threats hahahah for people there would probably find it irresistible to assume she is a reductionist. No she’s not. She’s a neuroscientist and she’s just trying to verify if there’s a biological marker and a biological marker is almost nothing without the environment in which the individual is inserted. Suppose she finds it. Would that be a real harm to society? Would be fair to sacrifice human rights, human dignity, fundamental freedom  for the “sake” of the society? Concrete situations are indeed harder.

And Oh well… better I come back to laboratory again.

Dear friends,

                            You are free to join themes together and write two more posts and one final comment. As I said before, it isn’t necessary to write specifically about Weeks 2 and 3 (an introduction to International Law and Universal Declararion on Bioethics), but read the material and apply it directly to neuroethics field.  You can join themes together and write a single post (for example, brain enhancement can be seen as a matter of privacy and free will and then you could write a single post joining those topics).

                 Just choose topics and write about them on a single post.

Best regards,

Ana Rosa Amorim.

Just go to course’s webpage (http://p2pu.org/NE-Neuro%C2%A0Outline) and then click on Neuro chat. Or, if you prefer, click on Neuro Chat (in green):

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This title is not my own but taken from Chapter 3 of Joseph Badaracco’s book Defining Moments. Although this book is directed to managers in the corporate world, the insights that Badaracco has apply are applicable to the Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights, and for that matter to any credo, constitution or set of guiding principles.

To begin, let me remind us of the extremely important insight raised by Aristotle in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. There he notes that law must necessarily deal in general language, and this is a defect. For justice concerns the particular case. Aristotle is no relativist but realizes this: the easy part is to state general truths such as “protect autonomy” and “maximize harm and minimize pain”. The hard part, however, is to determine what “protecting autonomy” means. In fact, we could even focus on the word autonomy noting that whereas some see autonomy simply as the “absence of constraints” others (such as myself) see it as the presence of a very specific type of teleological goal oriented experience. Point one is this: Grand Principles are “futile” because the hard part – and the part about which we disagree – is on how to apply them.

To illustrate, consider clause 1 of Article 3 which reads:
Human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be fully
respected.
Relevant to bioethics is a situation actually mentioned in Badaracco’s book concerning RU-486 – a drug developed by Rousel-Uclaf that is known as the “French abortion pill”. The pill is highly effective in inducing miscarriage during the first 5 weeks of pregnancy. The question is, does the Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights provide clear guidance on whether such a drug violates its tenets ?. I would argue NO. For some, the unborn possess the same rights and freedoms as the born. And even if we assume for the sake of argument that the unborn do not have fundamental rights , the question remains as to whether preventing access to RU-486 violates a fundamental right of women. In other words, if a safer, non-surgical method of abortion exists, are we violating a right in denying this method to women. And if so, does the government have a positive duty to provide this method, or do they merely have a ‘negative duty’ not to interfere with the decision of a woman to use it??

So while principles may do some work in making explicit important values, the hard work is determining how the principles apply in concrete situations.

Nor is this the only problem with “Grand Principles”. For conflicts of values are inevitable, as Badaracco points out. The tough decisions are right vs. right decisions – decisions wherein two competing values are at stake and we must decide which one trumps. So let me focus on clause 2 of Article 3 which reads:
The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.
Now on one reasonable reading, this clause stands for the proposition that individual rights trump the “common good” and is therefore a repudiation of a utilitarian ethic. But then Article 14, entitled SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND HEALTH lays out ends at which all governments should be aimed such as “access to adequate nutrition and water”. But suppose that there is not enough food & water. Further, suppose that one’s conception of “fundamental rights” includes property rights and that person P owns land that has water. Does the government then have the right to take the water from P’s land to give to those who need it? And if so, does this not conflict with clause 2 article 3 which, to remind you reads:
The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.
As a citizen of the U.S. and a student of the law I can tell you that one of the fundamental debates concerns the scope of just one little word “liberty”. This is significant. For the Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights contains lots of words that evoke the noble sentiments (autonomy, dignity). But the problems are 1) we disagree about what these terms mean; and 2) we disagree about what value should trump when two come into conflict (individual rights vs common good). The Universal Declaration on Bioethics Human Rights is an admirable first step, but the hard part is realizing its meaning in particular concrete situations. The Declaration can be interpreted to support government funding of RU-486, and it can also be interpreted to prohibit RU-486. The “right thing to do” is underdetermined by declarations. The meaning and implementation of “grand principles” ultimately rests with the discernment of the individuals and their particular choices — expressed by concrete actions — about who they want themselves, their nation, their world, to become.

<a href='‘ >Monkey
 
That experiment was amazing: a monkey controlling a robot arm by using only its own brain waves. One of the most exciting videos I’ve ever seen. So many applications. This is what science means to me.

You can read the entire story here or here. Amazing!

Dear friends,

                     Confirming our new schedule and tasks:

                     a) We are going to use the first option I proposed. So, you can write two more posts, combining themes and then a final comment to conclude our course;

                    b) Our new deadlines are: October 23 and October 28. I changed the dates, so you can have even more time to write your two new posts. Final comments are due to October 30.

                   c) I’m going to run 3 chat sessions and you can come and talk about any subject discussed during the course, if you’re free. I’ll be there to help you with any doubt or to discuss any topic. The first session will be on October 24 (saturday), at 02:00 pm, GMT time. The second session will be on October 28, at 08:00 pm, GMT time and our third session on October 30, at 08 :00 pm, GMT time. Our chat sessions will occur on our course webpage. Just click on Neuro Chat to join our conversation (make sure your browser accepts cookies, otherwise you’ll can’t join the chat).

Cordially,

Ana Rosa Amorim.

Course Organizer.

Dear friends,
                

               Some of you have contacted me saying how busy they were with other previous commitments (jobs, college, papers), leading them to face some troubles writing their assignments in time. Some haven’t also undestood that we were going to use our chat room, on P2PU website and then our chat session could not have happened. Let me share some ideas to take us on path again!
                 P2PU courses were developed as open, free courses, attended by a community of learners interested in a particular subject and willing to work with peers to enhance their knowledge. So far, we have been doing great. Your posts were very insightful and enriching, always providing different perspectives and analysis. However, being caught in the middle of the semester with more assignments to do is a challenge indeed.
                 I have organized the course, establishing modules and deadlines just to give us some direction and clear points of departure. Our intention, in P2PU, isn’t to  overwhelm our “students” ( I prefer peers) with dozen of prohibitive tasks. Our commitment, in P2PU, is with learning itself. So, I was thinking about a plan to put us on our path again, without interfering so much in your previous agenda.
                 I think we can  analyse some neuroethical issues, relating them to Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. The main goal of our course is to see if a normativist approach to neuroethics is a possible and feasible task. In order to do that, I’ve proposed some specific themes: brain enhancing; brain imaging and right to privacy and finally informed consent. In my view, it isn’t necessary to write specifically about Weeks 2 and 3(an introduction to International Law and Universal Declararion on Bioethics), but read the material and apply it directly to neuroethics field. Instead of 5 other posts, we now have 3 others.                             
                 My first idea is considering the possibility of joining themes together and writing a single post (for example, brain enhancement can be seen as a matter of privacy and free will and then you could write a single post joining those topics). Another idea is asking one of you to write a post and then the others would just post comments, reflecting about the position defended in the post. In this last case, someone needs to volunteer and pick a topic of particular interest. Both ideas can work well to me, since I’m interested in the discussion itself, rather than in the format we are using to conduct our course. 
                Adopting the first proposal, we’ll have to write 2 posts and a final comment, which seems great to me. Adopting the second idea, we’ll have 3 more posts, each one written by a volunteer, and with all others making comments about what was said, and them a final comment. 
                Since this is a free learning community, and we see ourselves as peers, not as teachers and students, I would like to hear your opinion. I prefer the first proposal, with actually would make us finish our course in two weeks!                 

Best regards,
Ana Rosa Amorim.

American Journal of Bioethics has officially launched two new journals: AJOB Primary Research and AJOB Neuroscience.  See a detailed description of those new journals here.

AJOB Neuroscience is currently accepting open-peer commentaries proposals. One of the new target articles accepting OPC deals with cognitive enhancement in infants and another one focuses on addiction and brain sciences. The latter seems particular interesting to those studying ethical theory. Check journal’s website to see how to register and  propose OPCs.

Ana Rosa Amorim.