Item 5: The two articles in “A computer that can ‘read’ your mind” and “Ethics and mapping the brain” describe the positive and negative effects brain

If you have watched the X-Men movies, did you remember a character called Professor Xavier? Have you ever thought of having his ability to read the people’s mind? This amazing ability can be accomplished with the help of today’s technology. Being working with my fellow colleagues for years we “are [now] closer to knowing how specific thoughts activate our brains” (The National Science Foundation, 2008). Computational modelling has become powerful enough to predict activities patterns which will improve scientists understanding of how the brain processes information from the senses. However, with this great discovery been uncovered, many potential unethical abuses will arise in our work.

One unethical abuse is invasion of privacy. With the use of this brain mapping technology, a person can invade one’s privacy and is able to ‘read’ one’s mind. This is a very disrespectful and unethical behaviour as everybody has their own rights of not disclosing their secrets or private matters. It will be disturbing when you cannot do your personal things in a discrete place as everyone knows where and what you are going to do! This unacceptable behaviour can be prevented by allowing only certain authorised personnel to use the brain mapping technology for critical conditions such as instigating the criminals.

Another potential abuse will be the marketing of the brain mapping technology to the consumers to earn large sums of money. The creating of this technology is not for sale in the first place. The purpose of brain mapping is to study the human brain and to provide the beneficial to mankind. This technology “could have applications in the study of autism, disorders of thoughts such as paranoid schizophrenia, and semantic dementias such as Pick’s diseases” (The National Science Foundation, 2008). According to Wilksinson (2008), neurologists from the Imperial has been using brain mapping to monitor the conditions of the stroke patients so as to “study the changes in the language pathways of the brain before and after the rehabilitation.” There are many medical benefits that have yet to be discovered using this technology. The main purpose of brain mapping technology will be defected if it is sold to the consumers. It will be very unethical for my researchers and me, if we are willing to sell our technology for money. If such technology will be laid onto the consumers hands, the problem of invasion of privacy will arise. To minimise this problem, only authorised dealers are allowed to sell the brain mapping technology to authorised users such as the Police Academy. Offenders will be dealt with legally if they sell the technology to unauthorised users.

The last unethical issue I want to bring about is treating the patients as ‘experimental tools’. Many people will say that it is unethical for us to do research on patients. By connecting them with wires, we are using them as our ‘specimens’ to conduct our experiment. I beg to differ. Before we conduct our research, we will make sure that we have a mutual trust and respect with the patients and their next of kin. The patients are aware of their great importance in this major project and not as ‘experimental tools’. The public must know that in order to have a breakthrough in medical history, we have to examine the patient’s brain and conduct the essential experiment. This is the only possible way to find the solution to some of the medical problems arises in our society. For instance, the using of brain mapping technology has proven to be successful in monitoring the rehabilitation progress of the stroke patients.
In conclusion, there are many unethical issues which arise from the research of brain mapping such as the invading of personal privacy, marketing of brain mapping technology to the consumers and making use of patients as our ‘experimental tools’. However, these potential issues can be minimised and prevented if the measures are acted as accordingly. Now you know that, even though humans can be Professor Xavier, but not everybody has the authority to posses this power.

Reference
National Science Foundation. (2008, May 30). A computer that can ‘read’ your mind [Press
release 08-091]. Retrieved November 2, 2008, from
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111641&org=olpa&from=news
Wilksinson, E. Helping stroke patients to speak. BBC News. Retrieved November 2, 2008
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7330790.stm