Researchers in both the science and medical fields have brought multiple advancements in diagnostic medical imaging over the years. A major breakthrough has been developing specifically in the neuroscience area. Brain imaging and “reading” has been a topic of interest and study since the 1920s and has come a long way in development. Neuroimaging has a profound future that we are only beginning to tap. Along with scans that are capable of allowing a doctor to see damage or abnormalities in the brain, scientists now are venturing to see if more complex scans could divulge more. Lie detection, identification of traits, emotions, and prejudice, and prediction of future behavior and pathology are just a few front-runners in the race of neuroscience advancement. But with all intravenous experimentations, ethical issues are quick to arise. The question of privacy is a major predicament in this subject; people view these “brain readings” as a threat to their mental privacy. As far as stances go, I believe as long as these procedures are taking place in an appropriate setting and both patient and doctor are aware of the consequences and results than I believe there is no ethical issue. Although the pressure brain-imaging technologies has being put on it, misuse is very probable and I believe ethical problems can arise in that situation.
As previously stated, neuroimaging science and study began in the early 1900s. The “great granddaddy” of functional brain viewing is electroencephalography, or EEG, and was invented by a German researcher by the name of Hans Berger. This exceptional neurologist discovered that the electrical activity of the brain is detectable outside the head. Following Berger’s steps, a group of scientists came up with ...
... middle of paper ...
...n they serve, locate the areas of the brain that are affected by neurological disorders, and develop new strategies to treat brain disorders. Along with such understandings, more in depth scans of the brain are beginning to reveal the possibility of a more refined and detailed lie detection source. If such technology is produced, the federal government will apply it to protecting the country, but what will others use it for? Premature commercialization brings forth the possible downfall of this technology; basic research that is needed will be halted and later misuse will corrupt the advancements we are making today. The ethical question of privacy will also need more scrutiny and thought before such methods become widespread, for society must be ready to come to a decision about the value of cognitive privacy before their world is overtaken with such technologies.
Those who were affected by the testing in hospitals, prisons, and mental health institutions were the patients/inmates as well as their families, Henrietta Lacks, the doctors performing the research and procedures, the actual institutions in which research was being held, and the human/health sciences field as a whole. Many ethical principles can be applied to these dilemmas: Reliance on Scientific Knowledge (1.01), Boundaries of Competence (1.02), Integrity (1.04), Professional and Scientific Relationships (1.05), Exploitative Relationships (1.07, a), Responsibility (2.02), Rights and Prerogatives of Clients (2.05), Maintaining Confidentiality (2.06), Maintaining Records (2.07), Disclosures (2.08), Treatment/Intervention Efficacy (2.09), Involving Clients in Planning and Consent (4.02), Promoting an Ethical Culture (7.01), Ethical Violations by Others and Risk of Harm (7.02), Avoiding False or Deceptive Statements (8.01), Conforming with Laws and Regulations (9.01), Characteristics of Responsible Research (9.02), Informed Consent (9.03), and Using Confidential Information for Didactic or Instructive Purposes (9.04), and Debriefing (9.05). These particular dilemmas were not really handled until much later when laws were passed that regulated the way human subjects could be used for research. Patients
The brain has four major lobes. The frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, and temporal lobe are responsible for all of the activities of the body, from seeing, hearing, tasting, to touching, moving, and even memory. After many years of debating, scientist presents what they called the localization issue, Garret explains how Fritsch and Hitzig studied dog with conforming observations, but the cases of Phineas Gage’s accident in 1848 and Paul Broca’s autopsy of a man brain in 1861 really grabbed the attention of an enthusiastic scientific community (Garret 2015 p.6)
In looking at these instances, the doctors seemed to have thought their actions normal. They thought that since they were treating the patient they automatically had access to their cells, tissues, DNA, that they could take without permission and use to develop science or to even become rich and famous like Dr. Golde tried to do. One might say that no matter how useful a person's biological property can be to western medicine and science, it does not excuse the violation of privacy of a patient. Ostensibly, there is no need to worry about a patient saying no if the doctor has moral and beneficial intentions for the use of a patient's private, biological
The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader about Wilder Penfield and his research over electric brain stimulation. This essay will give a brief biography of Wilder Penfield, a description of his research, and finally discuss the insight his experiments provided and the influence they had on our body and behavior in general.
Nowadays, it is widely known that the right and left hemisphere have different functions. The two hemispheres are equally important in a daily life basis. Nevertheless, in the 1960’s this was not common knowledge. Even though today the importance of the brain hemispheres is common knowledge, people don’t usually know to whom attribute this findings. One of the people who contributed to form a more defined picture about the brain hemispheres and their respective functions was Roger Wolcott Sperry, with the split brain research. Roger Sperry did more contributions than the split brain research, but this is his most important and revolutionary research in the psychological field. Thanks to the split brain research, Sperry proved that the two hemispheres of the brain are important, they work together and whatever side of the brain is more capable of doing the task is the hemisphere that takes the lead.
Historically, cognitive psychology was unified by an approach based on an resemblance between the mind and a computer, (Eysenck and Keane, 2010). Cognitive neuroscientists argue convincingly that we need to study the brain while people engage in cognitive tasks. Clearly, the internal processes involved in human cognition occur in the brain, and several sophisticated ways of studying the brain in action, including various imaging techniques, now exist, (Sternberg and Wagner, 1999, page 34).Neuroscience studies how the activity of the brain is correlated with cognitive operations, (Eysenck and Keane, 2010). On the other hand, cognitive neuropsychologists believe that we can draw general conclusions about the way in which the intact mind and brain work from mainly studying the behaviour of neurological patients rather than their physiology, (McCarthy and Warrington, 1990).
In persons suffering from epilepsy, the brain waves, electrical activity in the part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, have a characteristically abnormal rhythm produced by excessive electrical discharges in the nerve cells. Because these wave patterns differ markedly according to their specific source, a recording of the brain waves, known as an electroencephalogram (EEG) is important in the diagnosis and study of the disorder. Diagnosis also requires a thorough medical history describing seizure characteristics and frequency.
Mathematicians, medical doctors, neuroscientists, computer scientists, and a monkey are sitting in a room, they figure out how to remap the brain of paralyzed patients. This is no joke and was done by a team of researchers in 2002 at Brown University. Before a study like the aforementioned came along many would have ask what do a mathematician and a neuroscientist have in common. This is Johansson’s point; we have t...
Roger Sperry is one of the big Neurobiologists in the 1950’s. Sperry studied the relationship of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. In one of his experiments he flashed the word “Fork” in front of the patient. If the patient was asked to say the word he could not but if asked to right the word he would start to right the word “Fork”. This happed when the two brain hemispheres were disconnected from each other. At an another experiment he placed a toothbrush in the patients left hand and blind folded the patient and was asked to identify it they could not do it. But if placed in the right hand the patient would know right away what it was. That is just one of the types of study he did in his time.
Ethics refers to the values and customs of a community at a particular point in time. At present, the term ethics is guided by the moral principles that guide our everyday actions. These moral principles guide the researcher into deciding what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The foundation of medical ethics is governed by two philosophical frameworks that are deontology, and utilitarianism. However ultimately the ethics committees need to balance the risks, and benefits for the participants and the community associated with the particular research proposal. This balance is quite important as the well being of participants is at risk.7
Looking beyond the Nuremberg Code and applying it to modern medical research ethics, there are many challenges that it poses. Many have argued that the Code tries to provide for all unforeseen events, which restricts the researcher by requiring him to anticipate every situation, demanding the impossible. The most important contribution of the Code is the first principle, which says that voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. The subject involved should have legal capacity to give consent, should have free power of choice, as well as sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the experiment. This restricts that populations upon which some experiment may be conducted, since many do not have “legal capacity”. For instance, studies of mental illness and children’s diseases have been curtailed because neither of these populations has the legal capacity to give consent. Another group of people, prisoners, are never really able to give voluntary consent since they might be enticed by financial rewards, special treatment, and the hope of early release in exchange for participating in the human experimentation projects. British biostatitcian Sir Austin Bradford Hill also questioned whether it was important to inform a research subject who was receiving a placebo since it does...
Since the brain is extremely fragile and difficult to access without risking further damage, imaging techniques are used frequently as a noninvasive method of visualizing the brain’s structure and activity. Today's technology provides many useful tools for studying the brain. But even with our highest technology out there we do not know everything definitely. We do have fallbacks at times and these fallbacks can lead to serious problems.
The technologies used by the researchers range from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measures the changes in the different parts of the brain, to Steady state topography (SST) an...
EEG (Electroencephalography) technology is used to measure brain's electrical vibrations from the surface of the scalp. The resulting EEG pattern will contain frequency elements mainly below 30Hz. The frequencies are categorized into four states as follows: State Frequency range Amplitude State of mind
It can detect the record of a specific crime stored in the brain of the perpetrator. For example, brain fingerprinting can be used to detect the record of the murder of Julie stored in the brain of serial killer Justin. It can be used to prove that innocent convict Terry did not have the record of the murder of which he had been accused of. All this information is stored in his brain. Brain Fingerprinting as well can find out information stored in the brain that is known only to people with inside knowing of a terrorist or criminal organization, such as Al-Qaeda or Isis. More examples are brain fingerprinting proved over 99% accurate in detecting FBI-relevant information known to FBI agents but not to the public in a test at the FBI Academy on FBI agents. Also it can detect information known only to people trained in a certain field, such as bomb makers and people who make guns. But to do all this is must have the standards that things of this science have to have. Scientific studies have shown that meeting the Brain Fingerprinting standards is necessary not only for holding the scientific evidence in court, but also for to make sure it's correct, make sure it’s honest, and it’s true to the