I have received an e-mail from MBB informing about upcoming events. So, I would like to share them with you:

“The Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative is planning several events this year that we hope you will find appealing. Some of our events are still in the planning stages, but we have confirmed the dates for two of our events, so please mark your calendars.

The Translational Implications of Cognitive Neuroscience
Monday, November 2 from 4pm to 6pm
Yenching Auditorium, 2 Divinity Avenue

Join us as Harvard Medical School Professors Albert Galaburda, Charles Nelson, and Alavaro Pascual-Leone discuss how theories and evidence in cognitive neuroscience have led to important translational findings. Hosted by Professors Alfonso Caramazza and Marc Hauser, co-directors of MBB.

MBB Distinguished Lecture Series
Three Evening Lectures with Professor Michael Gazzaniga
April 20, 21, and 22

Michael Gazzaniga is a Professor of Psychology and the Director for the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara.  He oversees an extensive and broad research program investigating how the brain enables the mind.  Over the course of several decades, a major focus of his research has been an extensive study of patients that have undergone split-brain surgery that have revealed lateralization of functions across the cerebral hemispheres. In addition to his position in Santa Barbara, Professor Gazzaniga is also the Director of the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, President of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, and is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.”

Hello everyone!

                                     Just a simple question: is it Ok if I link our posts (using tweet feed) to my twitter account? In my opinion, you can do the same, if you would like to.

Ana Rosa Amorim.

Is neuroethics a field?

In my opinion, neuroethics is a new field. I am aware that in academic world sometimes fields are just a deliberated attempt to create a “space of my own”, a comfortable setting from where scholars can demonstrate expertise. However, I don’t think this is the case when talking about neuroethics.

Neuroethics, as a field, is focusing on the analysis of ethical issues generated by neuroscientific research and trials. It has been discussing social, legal and cultural aspects of neuroscientific agenda, topics with a considerable burden of specialized knowledge. It is necessary to concentrate and establish an entire field, mainly because dealing with cerebral aspects of human behavior is, to some extent, dealing to human nature itself.

One can argue, wittily, that we also have ethical issues involving other medical situations, like liver transplants and organ donations, but it wasn’t necessary to create a liver-ethics. Very few would dare to say that we are our livers or that we have seem something like a liver-decade.

Why creating a neuro-ethics?

Neuroethics, along with genetics, for adding another variable in out debate, involves our idea of identity and that’s why it can consider itself a field. Probably, a bioethics sub-field, but still a field.

What about international biolaw? International Biolaw is part of international legal discussing focusing on biological issues. We must be careful, otherwise we would be calling international environmental law as international biolaw, and don’t think this is the best use for term biolaw. Maybe it would be more appropriate to talk about international bioethics law…