Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . Brain Imaging . July 18, 2003 | PBS 10/05/2005 12:54 PM Week of September 30, 2005 COVER STORY: Brain Imaging Cover Story Current Stories Feature July 18, 2003 Episode no. 646 News Feature Web Exclusive Headlines BOB ABERNETHY, Dr. LANGLEBEN: We take anchor: Now, a those images and development in medical superimpose them on technology that, like so those (points to brain many others, raises scan) to be able to troubling ethical accurately locate areas of Text size questions. It concerns the changed activity. emerging science of brain imaging and its potential DE SAM LAZARO: Functional MRIs were to reveal not only what is conducted on 35 subjects in two studies at going on now but what a Langleben's University of Pennsylvania lab. person might be likely to do in the future. Fred de Dr. LANGLEBEN: I was Sam Lazaro reports. pleasantly surprised to see that there are parts of the (From MINORITY REPORT): Who is the victim? I brain that showed increased never heard of him, but I'm supposed to kill him activity when the person is in less than 36 hours. telling a lie. However, there was no part of the brain FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In the movie MINORITY that showed increased REPORT, Tom Cruise's character was convicted of activity when the person is a crime he was supposed to commit -- in the telling the truth. future. It may be science fiction, but the idea of predicting future behavior may not be that far- DE SAM LAZARO (to Dr. Langleben): So we are fetched. naturally inclined to tell the truth? With increasing precision, scientists are able to Dr. LANGLEBEN: Correct. In fact, when you think peer into the brain, most commonly with magnetic about it, this is expected because we know the resonance imaging. MRIs are used to scan the truth and we don't know the lie, so it should brain for disease. But fast new functional MRI require additional effort. machines can yield snapshots of human emotions and potential behaviors. DE SAM LAZARO: Dr. Langleben cautions his work is still in its infancy and may never result in MRI TECHNICIAN: a reliable lie detector test. But ethicist Arthur All right, John. The Caplan says it may not need to be accurate to be scanner's going to used, or perhaps misused. calibrate for 20 seconds. You're just Dr. CAPLAN: If going to hear a somebody says, for buzzing noise. Okay? example, today, "I am not a pedophile," DE SAM LAZARO: well, then I think At Emory University you could show in Atlanta, Dr. Clinton Kilts recently conducted them stimuli and try functional MRI scans on 16 executive M.B.A. to get students. The study's volunteers were told to read measurements of about and react to a fictional character their brain that confronting various moral dilemmas in the might give you some information about whether workplace. that is true or not. I wouldn't use it to diagnose the condition, but for some purposes right now -- Dr. CLINTON KILTS (Emory University School of for job employment, or let's say you are trying to Medicine): There are specific areas of the brain screen people for national security reasons or to that represent the repository of all your learned enter religious orders. Maybe you don't care if it's and aspirational content of self, and represent a 100 percent accurate. You are just going to avoid key element of being able to decide when people who might be problematic. That technology http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week646/cover.html Page 1 of 3 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . Brain Imaging . July 18, 2003 | PBS 10/05/2005 12:54 PM something is right or wrong. exists today. DE SAM LAZARO: Dr. Kilts is a psychiatrist. His DE SAM LAZARO: So far, goal is more effective treatment for psychiatric brain imaging technology disorders. has taken only baby steps out of the lab and into the Dr. KILTS: We have a very poor understanding of outside world. the neural basis of sociopathies. And I think techniques like this offer us a considerable Adam Koval works for one amount of insight into the biological basis and of the first for-profit improved treatments. neuromarketing companies in the world. It is studying how consumers think DE SAM LAZARO: and respond to marketing messages. It's Brain imaging, using information that could never be discerned from tools like this MRI the focus groups most marketers use today. machine, is the new state of the art in ADAM KOVAL (Bright House Institute for Thought medical diagnostics. Sciences): There are a lot of inherent biases in It goes well beyond focus groups, the need for someone to feel like genetic tests, which they are presenting you with information that you can predict the want to hear. If you say, "Do you like this probability, even product?" They will say "Yes," but they can't likelihood, of developing disease. Brain imaging articulate it on an analytic scale. can probe into the biology of behavior -- and thoughts. DE SAM LAZARO: Beyond commercial uses of brain Valuable as these insights are to doctors, some imaging, there are also ethicists fear they come perilously close to compelling social invading people's zone of privacy. applications. Just as brain imaging can tailor effective Dr. ARTHUR CAPLAN (Center for Bioethics, marketing messages, it University of Pennsylvania): People are beginning could also help create to say, "What if I really did begin to understand better antidrug campaigns, personal identity better, who you are, better than for example. The question Caplan says we'll ask you do?" increasingly is, "At what cost to our privacy?" DE SAM LAZARO: Without intending it, many Dr. CAPLAN: I think our ability to protect our researchers are gaining such insights, with far- confidentiality and our privacy will be put in peril reaching potential beyond medicine, notably in by this technology. Not because we can't legislate forensics. For example, Dr. Daniel Langleben's privacy, but those who have the goods will say research could someday yield a lie detector that's you have to yield that privacy in order to get far more accurate than polygraph tests, which are them. So you want this job? Yield this privacy. rarely admitted as evidence in courts. Langleben's interest actually was attention-deficit hyperactivity DE SAM LAZARO: A couple decades from now, disorder, or ADHD. Caplan says neuro-imaging could revolutionize our whole concept of self. It could tell us that choices Dr. DANIEL or behaviors we thought were of free will are LANGLEBEN actually predetermined, the result of our brain's (University of wiring. Pennsylvania School of Medicine): Slowly, it seems, the line is blurring where the Patients with ADHD, neurons end and free will begins. indeed, have some trouble producing, at For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is certain Fred De Sam Lazaro in Atlanta. circumstances, producing intentional lies. DE SAM LAZARO: So he set out to see what deception, or lying, looks like on an MRI scan. Related Materials from R & E: BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences Revisit R & E's November 9, 2001 report on Reason: "The Battle for Your Brain" by Ronald http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week646/cover.html Page 2 of 3 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . Brain Imaging . July 18, 2003 | PBS 10/05/2005 12:54 PM religion and the brain. Bailey, February 2003 Revisit bioethicist Arthur Caplan's review of the Nature Neuroscience: "Emerging ethical issues in movie MINORITY REPORT. neuroscience" by Martha J. Farah, November 2002 Related Links: Philadelphia Inquirer: "Brain source of research to find liars" by Joann Loviglio, AP, July 1, 2003 IEEE Spectrum: "Bioethics and the Brain" by Kenneth R. Foster, Paul Root Wolpe and Arthur L. The Wellcome Trust: "Head On: Art with the Brain Caplan, June 2003 in Mind" Stanford Hospital: "Joint Stanford-UCSF bioethics conference tackles troubling moral issues," May 7, Related Reading: 2002 NEUROETHICS edited by Steven Marcus The Dana Foundation: "Brain Work -- The Neuroscience Newsletter: Neuroethics" May-June BRAIN POLICY by Robert H. Blank 2002 OUR POSTHUMAN FUTURE by Francis Fukuyama University of Pennsylvania: "Truth and deception - the brain tells all" by Trinh Tran, April 11, 2002 NEUROPHILOSOPHY by Patricia Churchland Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics: "Some fear WHAT MAKES US THINK? A NEUROSCIENTIST loss of privacy as science pries into brain" by AND A PHILOSOPHER ARGUE ABOUT ETHICS, Carey Goldberg, May 1, 2003 (reprinted from The HUMAN NATURE AND THE BRAIN by Jean-Pierre Boston Globe) Changeux and Paul Ricoeur © 2005 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. 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