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| Dr. Angela Willey |
Hosted by the Center for Ethics, Neuroethics Program at Emory University
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Why Do Voles Fall in Love? Interview with Feminist Science Studies Scholar Angela Willey
The [insert adjective] Brain: Implications for Neuroscience in Popular Media
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| Via amazon.com |
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Who Owns My Thoughts?
I attended the excellent Neuroscience, Law, and Ethics of Lie Detection Technologies Symposium in May, and as a consequence, I have spent the last month trying to answer questions I hadn’t even thought to ask before: Who owns the thoughts in my head? Could I be compelled to submit them? Can someone else decide that keeping my ideas to myself is a violation of the law or a threat to my country? If they force me to surrender them, do I lose ownership? So this week, I thought I would share some of the things I learned as I tried to find out answers.
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| You can actually buy this online. I am considering getting it printed on a hat. |
Saturday, June 16, 2012
More or less human: How can a dog brain imaging study and companion animal neuroscience explain my human-ness?
“It was amazing to see the first brain images of a fully
awake, unrestrained dog,” Berns said. “As far as we know, no one has been able
to do this previously. We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding
canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human
relationship, from the dog’s perspective.”—Greg Berns, MD, PhD
Recently, the Emory laboratory of Dr. Greg Berns published
the first fMRI brain imaging study in unanesthetized dogs. Popular media reports of the study
touting, “What is your dog thinking?” and “Brain Scans Reveal Dogs’ Thoughts”
have raised the hackles of the public who ask, “Why conduct a frivolous
scientific study on something we already know?”
Thursday, June 14, 2012
The Brain Does That? So What?
In a column earlier this year, Psychology Today contributor Nate Kornell wrote about his annoyance with the excitement over findings that "the brain does that." Kornell's response to findings that "the brain does that" is a bit of an intellectual "duh!" Or, closer to his own words, the response is more of an exasperated "Of course it does!"
And I have to admit I share his annoyance … to a certain degree.
And I have to admit I share his annoyance … to a certain degree.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Animal Models and the Future of Psychiatric Research
"Few
medicines, in the history of pharmaceuticals, have been greeted with
as much exultation as a green-and-white pill containing 20 milligrams
of fluoxetine hydrochloride — the chemical we know as Prozac"
wrote Columbia University Assistant Professor of Medicine Siddhartha
Mukherjee in a recent New York Times editorial on antidepressant
efficacy. As Dr. Mukherjee points out, the rise of antidepressants over the
past several decades has been swift and staggering. A recent CDC study found that antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed
drug for Americans between 18 and 44 years of age, with 11% of
Americans over the age of twelve utilizing such medications.
| Original image from the Global Information Exchange Network |
Monday, June 11, 2012
Now Available! Videos of The Truth About LIes: Neuroscience, Law, and Ethics of Lie Detection Technologies Symposium
Did you miss this awesome event? Don't despair! We have the videos for all of our neuroethics friends who couldn't be there.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Likin’ Laken, if he ain’t fakin’
Last Friday, Emory held its third annual Neuroethics symposium,
focusing this year on the use of fMRI for lie detection and the acceptance of fMRI data as evidence in the courtroom. The
symposium featured talks from Stanford law professor Hank Greely, University of
Pennsylvania psychiatrist Daniel Langleben, and the CEO of Cephos, Dr. Steven Laken. I wasn’t surprised
to learn we’d invited the first two speakers: Greely wrote the seminal articles on law and neuroscience, and Langleben
pioneered fMRI studies of lying. It did surprise me to see Laken on the list.
His company Cephos is one of the few that have successfully marketed fMRI-based
lie detection for the commercial sector. I kind of thought—maybe hoped—that an audience composed largely
of neuroscientists would eat him alive.
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| Dr. Steven Laken, CEO of Cephos |
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Gay Brains, Gay Gene, Gay Rights: The Double-Edged Sword of Essentialism
As the semester drew to an end, and Kristina Gupta and I
closed out our course on Feminism, Sexuality, and Neuroethics, I have been
thinking a lot about the science of sexual identity. Participants in our class set out to consider the ethics of separating human beings into distinct kinds and
conducting neuroscientific research into those separations. Along the way, we
all thought about what the boundaries of sexuality and gender were, how they
are culturally bound, how desire is measured (and mismeasured), both in the
contemporary era and throughout history. We considered the use of these
differences to create legislation and the effects of both medicalization and
pathologization for members of sexual minorities.
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| I'm sure this is exactly what happens. (Original image from hyperboleandahalf.com) |
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