[Paleopsych] Slate: David Dobbs: Brain Scans for Sale
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Brain Scans for Sale - As brain imaging spreads to nonmedical uses,
will commerce overtake ethics? By David Dobbs
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112653/#ContinueArticle
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005, at 2:45 PM PT
The brain-imaging technology developed over the past three
decades--first [22]positron emission tomography, or PET, and more
recently the faster, simpler [23]functional magnetic resonance imaging
known as fMRI--has given neuroscience a tool of unprecedented power.
By tracing blood flow associated with neuronal activity, scanning
methods enable researchers to see how different regions of the brain
activate as a person thinks or acts. A subject, lying in a scanner,
completes mental tasks or responds to various stimuli--solving a
simple word puzzle, say, or a more complex task like characterizing
facial expressions. As the subject works, the scanner tracks changes
in blood flow to create images showing distinctive patterns of
neuronal activation. The result is a visual representation of the
"neural correlates" of various mental states.
At first this technology served primarily to refine a basic map of the
brain's main functional areas--showing, for instance, that certain
regions in either hemisphere process and generate language or that the
amygdala, an almond-sized area near the brain's center, acts as a sort
of hub connecting sensory perception, emotion, and memory. Researchers
also discovered patterns characteristic of difficult-to-diagnose
afflictions ranging from autism to schizophrenia. But perhaps the most
intriguing progress, most of which has come in the past five years,
has been researchers' increasing ability to identify patterns
distinctive to many of our more complex mental processes. Scan studies
have tracked the maturation of decision-making regions during
adolescence; clarified how we store, retrieve, and lose memories; and
identified the neural correlates of fear, distraction, and affection,
as well as of various character traits, including [24]extraversion,
empathy, and [25]persistence. They've even seen patterns of alarm when
volunteers viewed faces of people of another race--a sort of
[26]neural correlate of racism. Researchers find new correlations
every month.
Neurologists stress that cognitive neuroscience is still young, its
tools too rough and knowledge too patchy to predict behavior and
diagnose personality. Even fMRI, the finest-grained tool, cannot
capture events at the minute scale and lightning speed of the neuron.
And while a certain activation pattern may be common to most
murderers, for example, too many diseases and characteristics remain
unexplored to know that the same pattern couldn't also show up in a
Grand Theft Auto fanatic.
Despite these caveats, some entrepreneurs and researchers are carrying
brain imaging into new, nonmedical territory that could be ethically
treacherous. Some of these uses, such as lie detection, are already
upon us; others, such as the use of brain scans to screen job
applicants, seem almost certain to be explored or developed. Close
behind the neuroentrepreneurs are neuroethicists at places like the
University of Pennsylvania's [29]Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and
the [30]Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, who are trying to
identify and resolve the ethical concerns raised by these
applications: Are scanning technologies really appropriate for
nonmedical uses? If personal information is collected by a nonmedical
commercial interest, how can we ensure its confidentiality?
Perhaps the best-known and possibly least threatening nonmedical use
of scanning is the emerging "neuromarketing" industry. At least one
well-funded firm, [31]Brighthouse Neurostrategies Group, is trying to
learn how to better market everything from licorice to liquor by
scanning volunteers as they view ads or other media to see how
different advertising approaches activate different brain areas. This
strikes many as offensive; do we need yet more insidious ways to stir
consumer lust? Yet neuromarketing, while perhaps in poor taste, seems
harmless next to other possibilities.
More problematic is the use of brain-testing for high-tech lie
detection. Neurologist Larry Farwell's [32]Brain Fingerprinting
Laboratories is the most prominent such outfit. Farwell contracts with
public and private investigators to conduct a brain-wave analysis
called multifaceted electroencephalographic response analysis, or
MERA, that he claims can tell whether a suspect is familiar with
evidence--a crime scene, a face, a piece of furniture or
clothing--that would be known only to the perpetrator of a particular
crime. The suspect views a series of images on a computer screen while
wearing a little cap full of EEG-like sensors; the sensors pick up a
distinctive burst of neuronal activity when the suspect sees something
familiar. Most neurologists consider this method sound. It's the
application of it that gets messy--who uses it, whether proper
controls are established, whether the images shown could truly be
known only by whoever committed the crime. In high-profile cases like
those Farwell has worked on, such as the successful effort to free
wrongly convicted murderer [33]Terry Harrington, such issues get close
scrutiny. But if brain fingerprinting becomes common, [34]shoddy or
dishonest technique could produce false convictions.
The most complex, fraught, and uncertain aspect of brain imaging being
discussed by neuroethicists is the potential these technologies hold
for screening job and school applicants. This so far remains more a
hypothetical notion than a budding industry, and no company or school
has announced plans to scan applicants. Yet many ethicists feel the
temptation will be overwhelming. How to resist a screen that can gauge
precisely the sorts of traits--persistence, extroversion, the ability
to focus or multitask--that make good employees or students?
The legality of such use is unclear. The relevant federal laws, the
American With Disabilities Act and the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (which governs privacy of medical information),
allow pre-employment medical tests only if they assess abilities
relevant to a particular job. An employer couldn't legally scan for
depression or incipient Alzheimer's. Yet it's possible an employer
could legally use a brain scan to test for traits relevant to a
particular job--risk tolerance for a stock-trading job, for instance,
or extroversion for a sales position. An additional attraction of
brain scanning is that a tester can evaluate these and other traits
while an applicant performs nonthreatening, apparently unrelated
tasks--like matching labels to pictures. An unscrupulous employer
could fashion such tests to covertly explore subjects that would be
off-limits in an interview, such as susceptibility to depression, or
cultural, sexual, and political preferences.
Finally, widespread brain testing poses the risk that the results
could be filed away in databases marketed to prospective employers,
lenders, health and life insurance companies, or security officials,
similar to the way credit rating information is now. Present law would
forbid this if the scans were considered medical information. But if
they were ruled nonmedical--or if consent were obtained, as consent
for releasing certain medical information to insurers or employers
often is now--some sharing might be allowed.
How likely are these things, really? Your opinion on this will likely
depend largely on your faith in how well the legal system will protect
privacy and how well any emerging neuroinformation industry will heed
ethical guidelines. Nonmedical brain imaging currently falls under no
regulatory agency's purview. And the response of both industry and
government will likely depend partly on public awareness and pressure.
To the extent it pays attention, the public today seems to view
neuroscience as a curiosity. But should a new brain-testing industry
start to seem heedless or brash--lacking that adultlike prefrontal
control, as it were--we may want to start setting limits.
[35]David Dobbs writes on science, medicine, and culture. His latest
book is Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the
Meaning of Coral.
Photograph on the Slate home page of MRI of brain and head from
Royalty-Free Corbis.
What did you think of this article?
Join the Fray, our reader discussion forum
[43]POST A MESSAGE [44]READ MESSAGES
Remarks from the Fray:
Dobbs suggests that there is a distinction between medical and
non-medical brain imagining, based entirely on the application of the
data rather than on the procedure itself.
Do we draw a similar distinction between medical and non-medical
x-rays, ultrasounds or urinalyses? No: they are all considered medical
procedures regardless of how one uses the data collected.
Why should data retrieved from the brain be any less "medical" than
data retrieved from the blood or tissue samples? I suspect that it is
because of superstitious mind/body dualism: that somehow the brain is
not as "material" as the rest of the body, and that any data retrieved
is less concrete...less grounded in science.
While it is true that much of the inner workings of the brain have yet
to be fully understood, the brain is still an ORGAN, albeit a highly
complex organ.
When one performs a MEDICAL procedure upon an ORGAN, then that data is
clearly medical data, and should be considered confidential under
current law.
--Ang_Cho
(To reply, click [45]here)
Dobbs frets over the possibility of "...a screen that can gauge
precisely the sorts of traits--persistence, extroversion, the ability
to focus or multitask--that make good employees or students?"
Don't let BRAIN IMAGING take on a magical quality that good ol'
paper-and-pencil neuroscience lacks. We HAVE tests to measure
persistence, extroversion, and ability to focus along with
"intelligence" and a teeming host of other traits. They just happen to
display their effects on a test page instead of a picture of someone's
head. And, for the time being at least, they are much more likely to
be accurate measures of the traits in question. So, if the ethical
questions surrounding giving someone an IQ test or an MMPI at a job
interview are settled...well then, a brain image doesn't really add
any new problems.
--Mangar
(To reply, click [46]here)
Mr. Dobbs makes a creditable effort to describe the frontier of
functional imaging of the brain.
The trouble is that now it is more like phrenology, or "animal
magnetism", or the Orgone Box at this point -- a myriad of hucksters
surrounded by hype with little in the way of careful study. That is
because those who do the careful study are puzzling away at the
complexities trying to figure them out while the hucksters hawk their
snake oil, which in this case appears to be an oxygen isotope or some
electrolytic cream...
... everything that we have learned from neuroscience at this point
indicates that neural activity adapts to tasks over at least 3 time
courses and progresses from a "recognition of novelty" or initiation
pattern to a "habituation to routine" or familiarity pattern. It is a
biological universality that even extend to Paramecium when they get
bumped on the front or bacteria when exposed to a drop of sugar. This
means that the only way that a brain scan can yield an accurate
pattern that is unique to a particular stimulus/activity/task is to
track the temporal changes of activity in all regions of cortex (and
not simply the particular "brain centers" associated with the activity
through neurological lesion studies). In fact, much of the supposedly
demonstrated functional imaging is validated ostensibly by reference
to the field potentials, an older technique. Statistical validity is
rarely examined, and the reason the reputable scientists so rarely
speak up is because they are busy trying to figure this out.
--NarcoRepublican
(To reply, click [47]here)
(1/26)
References
22. http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-medicine2.htm
23. http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fmri_intro/brief.html
24. http://www.apa.org/journals/bne/bne115133.html#tbl1
25. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/6/3479?maxtoshow=&HITS=&hits=&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=fmri+persistence&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1105161998295_20992&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=1
26. http://www.psychtesting.org.uk/hotissues.asp?id=80
27. http://slate.msn.com/id/2112653/#ContinueArticle
28. http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/slate.technology/slate;kw=slate;sz=300x250;ord=1234?
29. http://ccn.upenn.edu/
30. http://scbe.stanford.edu/research/programs/neuroethics.html
31. http://www.thoughtsciences.com/
32. http://www.brainwavescience.com/HomePage.php
33. http://www.brainwavescience.com/IowaSupCourtPR.php
34. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0410210285oct21,1,2210813.story?coll=chi-newsspecials-hed
35. http://daviddobbs.net/
36. http://slate.msn.com/
37. http://slate.msn.com/id/2112653/
38. http://slate.msn.com/id/2112151/
39. http://slate.msn.com/id/2111499/
40. http://slate.msn.com/id/2111023/
41. http://slate.msn.com/id/2109808/
42. http://slate.msn.com/?id=3944&cp=2657
43. http://slate.msn.com/?id=3936&post=1&tp=medicalexaminer
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