Zombethics Case Graphic

With Halloween just around the corner, zombies and other atypical creatures are much on our minds, but such constructs are rarely thought of from an ethical perspective. This year, on October 26th at 5:30 pm at the Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Ethics Commons Room 102, Emory Center for Ethics is collaborating with Emory Integrity Project (EIP) to boggle your mind with ethical considerations and encourage you to consider how students should engage across (in)visible differences at Emory. The discussion will be based around three interesting case studies which can be found here. These scenarios will lead to questions such as, ‘should people ask others what gender pronouns they prefer to be associated with, even if the answer may seem “obvious” at first glance.’ On the other hand, what are the implications of assuming non-visible disability based on a person’s behaviors or appearance? The goal of the symposium will be to help participants handle controversial issues like these and to guide them to effectively deal with such situations.

To find out more about the event, I spoke with coordinator Dr. Paul Wolpe from the Emory Center for Ethics as well as Ms. Emily Lorino and Dr. Rebecca Taylor from the Emory Integrity Project, and Dr. Karen Rommelfanger, chair of the Zombethics^® conference series. Here’s what I asked:

Racial bias can, and often does, occur in several elements of the criminal justice process, including on initial police contact, during eye-witness identification, and in jurors’ decisions. This disparity of how people are treated throughout the justice system is likely influenced by the criminal black male stereotype that pervades our American culture (1). Some propose that this stereotype originated in the slavery and post-slavery eras, with the onset of Jim Crow laws and other post-slavery codes that instigated segregation and also sanctioned racially-biased punishments for blacks, and especially for black males. Racially-biased punishments are still present today, with a 2015 article in Slate magazine citing that black Americans are more likely to have their cars searched, to be arrested for drug use, to be jailed while awaiting a trial, and to serve longer sentences for the same offense as white Americans.

The presence of racial bias in the criminal justice system is irrefutable, and investigation into the elements fueling this bias has recently moved into the realm of neuroscience. In last month’s Neuroethics and Neuroscience in the News talk, Dr. Heather Kleider-Offutt from Georgia State University explained that not all black men are stereotyped in the same way. Instead, certain black men are subject to a higher degree of negative bias than other black men, and inclusion in this select subgroup is based on face-type and not skin color alone.

Alex Lin is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University pursuing a dual degree in Biological Sciences and Philosophy. As an aspiring physician, he is interested in medical ethics and runs the Rutgers Bioethics Society alongside a diverse team of student thinkers. Alex is from Paramus, New Jersey, and volunteers as an emergency medical technician for his community.

Death, by definition, is irreversible. The notion of irreversibility is a central component of the current standards of death, cardiopulmonary and neurological alike. Given that the neurological criteria−the irreversible cessation of whole brain function−is the legally recognized criterion of death in many countries, including the United States [1], forthcoming advancements in neurotechnology under the BRAIN Initiative will be crucial to the accurate determination of death. With the development of technologies that allow scientists to study how individual neurons interact in significantly greater detail, questions emerge concerning the particular moment of truly irreversible total brain failure.

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016. 

Sarika Sachdeva is an undergraduate junior at Emory studying Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and Economics. She is involved with research on stimulant abuse and addiction under Dr. Leonard Howell at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. 

In 2006, Dr. Ted Kaptchuk designed a clinical drug trial to evaluate a new pain pill in patients with severe arm pain. Participants in the study were assigned to receive either the pill or an acupuncture treatment for several weeks. Dr. Kaptchuk found that the people who received acupuncture ended up with more pain relief than those who had taken the pain pill. This difference was surprising, not because the pain pill was expected to be more effective, but because neither treatment was real- the pain pills contained cornstarch and the acupuncture was done with false needles that never pierced the skin.

By Sunidhi Ramesh

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016. 

Ethan Morris is an undergraduate senior at Emory University, majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology with a minor in History. Ethan is a member of the Dilks Lab at Emory and is a legislator on the Emory University Student Government Association. Ethan is from Denver, Colorado and loves to ski.   

Background and Current Research

Neuroscience is a rapidly burgeoning field that is increasingly facing complex issues as scientists learn more about the human brain and by extension, about personal identity. One technology that has gained attention in the last two decades is brain imaging, a technique that uses various tools to evaluate the brain’s functional response to the world. Some of the more commonly used brain imaging devices are functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), both of which measure blood flow (albeit by different mechanisms) through the brain. These blood flow results show which areas of the brain are metabolically active, and are thus activated by the task at hand. Using these devices, researchers can determine the activity of certain brain regions associated with certain types of sensory and perceptual processing, as well as cognitive function.

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Anayelly is a Senior at Emory University majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. 

If your doctor told you they could determine whether or not you would develop a neurodegenerative disease or mental disorder in the future through a brain scan, would you undergo the process? Detecting the predisposition to or possible development of disorders or diseases not only in adults but also in fetuses through genetic testing (i.e. preimplantation genetics) has been a topic of continued discussion and debate [2]. Furthermore, questions regarding the ethical implications of predictive genetic testing have been addressed by many over the past years [4,8]. However, more recently, neuroimaging and its possible use in detecting predispositions to neurodegenerative diseases as well as mental disorders has come to light. The ethical questions raised by the use of predictive neuroimaging technologies are similar to those posed by predictive genetic testing; nevertheless, given that the brain is the main structure analyzed and affected by these neurodegenerative and mental disorders, different questions (from those posed by predictive genetic testing) have also surfaced.