E-Portfolio 4

The roundtable discussion issue is “Should institutions or governments regulate the use of technologies such as Computational Modelling in Brain Studies?”. This is an argumentative discussion, thus the first article by National Science Foundation (NSF) will support this issue, and where as the second article by L. Marano will against it.

In the article by NSF, it gives information about “A computer that can read your mind” (NSF, 2008). This is a new technology that is still undergoing research by a Computer scientist Tom Mitchell and a Congnitive neuroscientist Marcel. The researchers used data from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and constructed a computational model which allowed the computer to correctly shown what word the person is thinking about. FMRI can “identify and locate brain activity when a person thinks about specific word related to concrete nouns” (NSF, 2008) such as an apple. This “computational model also can predict the brain activation pattern even without using the data from fMRI” (NSF, 2008). Using this technology, scientist or researcher can identify thoughts and can be used in the study of autism, paranoid schizophrenia and semantic dementia. This article is very useful as it gives insight to the outcome of inter-disciplinary research. Also it shows a specific example regarding the issue.

The second article by L.Marano is about “Ethics and Mapping the Brain”. In this article the author gives five bioethical standards regarding technologies such as fMRI that could “reveal a person’s memory, predict mental disorder or giftedness and recognize whether a person is lying or not”(Marano, 2003). The first one is which technology is ready to be used by the public, as there are issues concerning accuracy and error rates. Secondly, whether the evidence based on the result of this technology can be accepted in court. Thirdly, whether consent is needed from the subject to be examined with this technology. Fourthly is about access, should there be a database of everyone’s brain picture and who has the access to use this database. The fifth one is should children be tested with these technologies, to find out about their abilities. The author also adds some questions to the society about “who will be tested, why they will be tested and how the result will be used” (Marano, 2003). This article is related to the topic as it gives the opposing side of using this technology.

The two articles have unfamiliar words that relevant to the topic. FMRI is MRI machine used to scan the brain activity pattern. Bioethical, moral principles related to law, theology, medicine, politics, biotechnology and life science. Computational model is a method of simulating real-life situations with mathematical equations to predict the future.

Biblography:
1. Marano, L. (2003, June 3). Ethics and Mapping the Brain (An abridged version of the original in The Washington Times) Retrieved March 1, 2009, from http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/brain_mapping_ethics.htm
2. National Science Foundation. (2008, May 30). A Computer that can ‘read’ your mind [Press release 08-091]. Retrieved March 1, 2009, from http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111641&org=olpa&from=news