Neuroethics Journal Club: Neural Correlates of Negative Stereotype

Our everyday perceptions of others can potentially be biased by cultural stereotypes. However, research has suggested that an initial, and often negative, stereotype can be downregulated via a highly connected neural network. While this regulatory process has been studied under neutral conditions, for the third journal club of the semester Neuroscience graduate student Kim Lang led a discussion about regulation of this neural network when White individuals are not under neutral conditions, but actually primed for negative African American stereotyping.

A recent paper published by Forbes et al. used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), three highly interconnected brain regions important for stereotyping and bias. Studies have shown that the amygdala, involved in arousal, is activated immediately when encountering a so-called out-group member. This first response can be downregulated though if an individual is given time for non-biased deliberation, and this is reflected by activation in the PFC. The OFC is the regulator of these two neural regions, especially if initial negative stereotyping is in conflict with an egalitarian view. Prior research has shown this amygdala inhibition by the lateral PFC region with an experiment where White participants were shown Black faces in either rapid succession (30 ms) or at a slower rate (525 ms). When participants did not have time to reflect on the faces during the fast exposure speeds, enhanced amygdala activation was observed reflecting the early arousing response. During the slow exposure time condition though, amygdala activity was not enhanced.  Instead, increased activity was observed in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which correlates with decreased amygdala activation (Cunningham et al.). This study suggests that if given enough time, a biased view reflected in the activation of the amygdala, can be reconsidered.

Adapted from The Jury Expert

Just Neurons?

Neuroessentialism is the belief that you, your mind, your identity, are essentially just your brain. It gets touted as an example of how science has triumphed, once again, over superstitions of the past - your soul hasn't died, it was just an illusion! Created by the brain. With memory, sensation, speech, and just about every other human attribute found to be located in one gyrus or another, it seems like there isn't anything left that could be outside of the brain. Francis Crick referred to this as the “astonishing hypothesis[1],” and while Stephen Pinker pointed out that for most neuroscientists this idea hardly warranted much astonishment[2], what might be more astonishing is how quickly the idea is bleeding out of the laboratory into popular media.  The basic philosophical foundations of this notion have been around for a long time (as mentioned on the [highly entertaining] podcast “very bad wizards,” we've known for a long time that when you remove the head, the mind ceases to function. Grant Gillet mentions that even Aristotle held that the mind emerges as function of the body, rather than a separate spiritual entity that somehow inhabits the body).  However, the recent attention that neuroscience has been getting (especially with the advent of fMRI, which enabled a huge number of studies on healthy, awake humans) appears to have made this an easier pill for the public at large to swallow. Dr. Peter Reiner has even gone as far to document the rise of neuroessentialism and has begun to map out the potential positive and negative effects of this cultural shift[3].

A distant relative of the brain-in-a-vat: the brain-in-a-hat.  "I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. Therefore, it is the brain I must consider." A very neuroessentialist sentiment of Sherlock Homes, in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Image from here.

With the rise of any sort of public awareness, we should expect there to be reactionaries who warn us about going too far with our new idea and neuroessentialism is no different. Rather than defending old arguments in the face of overwhelming experimental evidence, these thinkers instead point cautiously forward and advise us to make our claims about the mind carefully, rather than jump on the neuro-bandwagon.  I'd like to display two of these recent, anti-essentialist thinkers here.  Both argue what might be considered further expansions of Clark and Chalmers' extended mind hypothesis[4]--which itself argued that pen & paper, computers, (and today, cell phones) could all be considered as vital components of cognitive processes, and thus as part of the mind.   

Neuroethics Journal Club: Sexual Fantasies and Gender/Sex

In May of 2013, The New York Times Magazine published an article discussing the ongoing clinical trials of a unique new drug that caught the interest of Emory University neuroscience graduate student Mallory Bowers. The drug, dubbed “Lybrido”, was being tested for its ability to improve sexual desire in women.  However, Lybrido is not just a female Viagra-like formulation.  That is apparently one part of it but the other, perhaps more surprising part, is the pill’s testosterone coating that is designed to melt away immediately in the mouth. To better understand how testosterone (T) could modulate female desire, and to discuss the neuroethical implications of pharmaceutically targeting it, Ms. Bowers chose a recent paper in the Journal of Sex Research by Goldey et al. entitled “Sexual Fantasies and Gender/Sex: A Multimethod Approach with Quantitative Content Analysis and Hormonal Responses” for the second Neuroethics Journal Club of the year. 

The Future of Law and Neuroscience: An Interview with Owen Jones, The Director of the MacArthur Research Network on Law and Neuroscience

After watching the PBS “Brains on Trial” special that featured innovative brain imaging technologies and examined the subsequent implications for the legal field, I decided to take a deeper look at the status of current neuroscience research and the future ramifications for the emerging field of neurolaw. To that end, I interviewed Professor Owen Jones. Owen Jones currently directs the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience taking the lead in crafting a conceptual framework, which seeks to define and outline many of the legal issues surrounding recent neuroscientific findings. Jones also designed, created, and now directs the Law and Neuroscience Research Network, an unprecedented interdisciplinary effort that has called upon scholars from a myriad of areas for the purpose of examining how neuroscience can inform legal decisions in criminal contexts.

Now Available! Bias in the Academy Pre-Symposium Series Archives on YouTube

This year's Neuroethics Symposia, a partnership of Emory's Neuroscience Graduate Program, Laney Graduate School and the Emory Center for Ethics Neuroethics Program, is designed to discuss the complex influence of stereotype/bias on academia and apply advances in the science of stereotype bias to university policies and practices. Through a pre-symposia seminar series and symposia, a white paper will be produced to highlight challenges and to put forth practical solutions to move toward mitigating the detrimental influence of bias and stereotyping in academia.

The first of four pre-symposium seminars was led by neuroscience graduate student, Jacob Billings.  The video of this seminar is available below.

An Introduction to Bias: A Social Network Primer 

Jacob Billings, Neuroscience graduate student, Emory University 

Experimental Neuroethics

By Peter Reiner, VMD, PhD

Dr. Reiner is Professor in the National Core for Neuroethics, a member of the Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research, Department of Psychiatry and the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, and a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board.

Four years ago, Neil Levy gave the concluding lecture at the first Brain Matters conference in Halifax. He alerted the audience of neuroethicists to the fact that the field of philosophy was undergoing a revolution – rather than muse from their armchairs in the ivory tower, a group of renegade philosophers were carrying out real experiments, asking people what their intuitions were about central issues in philosophy. Dubbed experimental philosophy, the new initiative was met with more than passing resistance from traditional philosophers. The apostate experimental philosophers responded by developing a logo of a burning armchair.

Photo credit: Timothy Epp, Shutterstock

The landmark experiment was carried out by Josh Knobe, and its findings subsequently became known as the Knobe effect (you can watch a great recreation of the phenomenon in this YouTube video). Essentially, what Josh did was repurpose an old method from social psychology called the contrastive vignette technique (CVT)¹. At its simplest, the CVT involves designing a pair of vignettes that carefully describe a particular situation (in the case of experimental philosophy, one that is often morally charged) but crucially differ in one detail, hence the term contrastive. Respondents see one and only one version of the vignette, and are then asked questions about what they have just read, with responses commonly recorded as a numerical rating on a Likert scale. By comparing the averaged responses between separate groups of people who have read the vignettes, the experimenter can systematically investigate the effects of small changes (of which the respondents are entirely unaware) upon attitudes towards nearly any topic. The experimental philosophers tend to use the technique to explore the meaning of concepts. Neil Levy pointed out that this same approach could, in principle, be applied to the full range of issues in neuroethics.

Neuroethics Journal Club: The Ethical Issues behind Brain-to-Brain Interface (BTBI) Technologies

The first Neuroethics Journal Club of the Fall 2013 semester was a discussion led by graduate student John Trimper on the ethical implications behind brain-to-brain interface (BTBI) technologies. John introduced the topic by presenting the experimental details and results from a recent paper, published by the Nicoleis lab at Duke University (Vieira et al.), where researchers utilized a BTBI to transfer sensorimotor information between two rats. The BTBI technology allowed for a transfer of information from an “encoder” rat to a “decoder” rat, not using typical bodily interactions, but instead through intracortical microstimulation (ICMS).

"Rodent Mind Meld" (Via Wired)

The researchers conducted three experiments that demonstrated an artificial communication channel where cortical sensorimotor signals, coded for a specific behavioral response, were recorded in the encoder rat and transmitted to the decoder rat. Once received from the encoder rat, the decoder rat was instructed by these signals in making behavioral choices.  In the first experiment, a motor task, the encoder rat pressed one of two levels indicated by a LED light. This information was transferred via ICMS to the decoder rat, who would then choose the same lever without the help of the LED light. While the encoder rat performed better than the decoder rat, the decoder rat did perform correctly at levels significantly above chance. In the second experiment, the decoder rat again performed significantly better than chance, but in a tactile discrimination task. The encoder rats were trained to discriminate the size of an aperture with their whiskers; if the aperture were narrow, then the rats would nose poke on the left, while if the aperture were wide, the rats would nose poke on the right. Encoder rats explored the aperture, nose poked the right or the left, and then again, through ICMS, this information was sent to the decoder rat. The decoder rat would then also poke to the right or the left, but without any hint about the size of the aperture. Not only did researchers conduct this experiment with encoder and decoder rats residing in the same Duke laboratory, but impressively the same tactile discrimination task was also completed with an encoder rat in Brazil and a decoder rat at Duke, showing the potential of long-distance BTBI technology.

Tibetan monastics and a neuroscientist: Some lessons learned and others taught

By Guest Contributor Brian Dias, PhD

Imagine your day starting out near the Northern Indian town of Dharamshala with thirty minutes of spiritual chanting and meditation among Tibetan Buddhist monastics. Now you follow that by spending the whole day teaching Neuroscience to these same monastics. “Bliss”, “introspection”, “questioning”, “challenging” and “why” are some of the words that may come to mind. They certainly did for me while I had the privilege of being a Neuroscience faculty member as part of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI) this past summer in India. Other faculty members included Dr. Melvin Konner (Evolutionary Anthropology, Emory University), Dr. Ann Kruger (Developmental Psychologist, GSU) and Dr. Carol Worthman (Medical Anthropology, Emory University).

An audience with His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama,
and teaching monastics in Dharamshala, India.

I intend to use this blog post to shed light on the intersection of Buddhist philosophy and western science as seen through my fifteen days with the monastics (a term used to include both monks and nuns). Started in 2007 with the blessing of His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama, the ETSI has been administered by The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and Geshe Lobsang Negi who is a professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University. Over these years, the ETSI has been teaching Math, Physics, Neuroscience and Biology to cohorts of monastics from monasteries across India. After a 5 year science curriculum, this was the second ETSI graduating class. An immediate survey of the monastics revealed a skewed sex-ratio in that the class comprised of 42 monks and only 2 nuns. This inequality of representation is being slowly but surely remedied with the first group of nuns sitting for their Geshe exams that will confer upon them the status of a Buddhist scholar equivalent to the male scholars.

Gearing Up for New Currents in Sports Enhancement

By Anjan Chatterjee, M.D., F.A.A.N

Anjan Chatterjee is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical practice focuses on patients with cognitive disorders. His research focuses on spatial cognition and language, attention, neuroethics, and neuroaesthetics. He is President of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics and the Chair of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology.



Alex Rodriguez is the latest in a long list of superstar athletes embroiled in a doping scandal. Lance Armstrong, Tyson Gay, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, and Mark McGuire, among many others, preceded him. Competition in sports is predicated on athletes following rules; rules that try to codify fairness. Some combination of natural talent and effort is rewarded. Each athlete strives and may the best man and woman win.

Despite this ethos, doping scandals abound. Almost a third of the athletes responding to an anonymous survey about the 2011 World Track and Field competition admitted to using performance enhancing drugs [1]. Such competitions showcase the allure of enhancements that is magnified by winner take all environments. Rewards in sports do not scale linearly. Incremental differences, especially at top levels, deliver disproportionate rewards. Being the twentieth fastest runner in the world may be an extraordinary personal achievement, but it does not garner fame and fortune. Regulation, monitoring, and the possibility of public shame presumably restrain the desire to win by any means necessary when those means include breaking rules.

Consciousness and Ethical Pain

Imagine you find that a beloved uncle has received a terrible injury that leaves him paralyzed, but still totally aware of his environment - a condition known as locked in syndrome. Now imagine that a doctor comes to you with a miracle cure: a new experimental treatment will repair your uncle's damaged brainstem allowing him to regain control of his body. The catch, however, is that this procedure is extremely painful. It actually seems like it might be the most painful experience possible: fMRI scans reveal that all the brain regions that are active during extreme pain are activated during this (imaginary) procedure. And it lasts for hours. However, your uncle won't complain about the procedure because 1) he's paralyzed and thus can't voice his suffering, and 2) the experience of this miracle treatment will mercifully be forgotten once the procedure is over, so your uncle won't raise any complaint afterwards. While many of us would probably sign off on the procedure, we might still feel guilty as we imagine what it must be like to go through that, even if our uncle wouldn't recall it later.

The neural 'signature' of pain, as seen through fMRI [8].  Image from here.

This scenario is meant to illustrate that there seems to be an aspect of the moral weight of pain - its significance in ethical discussion and decision making and guilt - that has to do specifically with what pain feels like. Not the way it makes us act, not the danger it represents, but that first person, qualitative, subjective experience of being in pain, or suffering through pain. The ability to have such qualitative, subjective experiences is called qualitative (or sometimes phenomenal) consciousness. We tend to assume that most humans are conscious, and that this is the primary reason why hurting them is wrong- indirect selfish reasons (like avoiding jail time or losing them as a friend and ally) are seen as being secondary to this primary fact: the evil of pain[1].

For this reason, discussions of pain taking place in unfamiliar creatures (which I'm using to refer to anything that isn't able to explicitly tell you how it feels - including humans with certain neurological conditions, as well as almost all non-human animals, and perhaps even stranger entities) are often intimately tied to the possibility of that creature being conscious. This occurs for instance when deciding whether a patient with Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (formerly called vegetative state) should receive analgesia[2,3], or when debating about the necessary precautions that should be taken when fishing or slaughtering chickens. If it can be demonstrated that something doesn't meet our requirements for consciousness, suddenly we have free range to treat that thing as more of an object than a person[4].  If consciousness is suspected on the other hand, we become much more cautious with our treatment of the entity.