The future of mind control

[Guest guest]

Neurosciencehttp://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1143583 The future of mind control>From The Economist print editionPeople already worry about genetics. They should worry about brain sciencetooIN AN attempt to treat depression, neuroscientists once carried out a simpleexperiment. Using electrodes, they stimulated the brains of women in waysthat caused pleasurable feelings. The subjects came to no harm—indeed theirsymptoms appeared to evaporate, at least temporarily—but they quickly fellin love with their experimenters.Such a procedure (and there have been worse in the history of neuroscience)poses far more of a threat to human dignity and autonomy than does cloning.Cloning is the subject of fierce debate, with proposals for wholesale bans.Yet when it comes to neuroscience, no government or treaty stops anything.For decades, admittedly, no neuroscientist has been known to repeat the loveexperiment. A scientist who used a similar technique to createremote-controlled rats seemed not even to have entertained the possibility.“Humans? Who said anything about humans?” he said, in genuine shock, whenquestioned. “We work on rats.”Ignoring a possibility does not, however, make it go away. If asked to guesswhich group of scientists is most likely to be responsible, one day, foroverturning the essential nature of humanity, most people might suggestgeneticists. In fact neurotechnology poses a greater threat—and also a moreimmediate one. Moreover, it is a challenge that is largely ignored byregulators and the public, who seem unduly obsessed by gruesome fantasies ofgenetic dystopias.A person's genetic make-up certainly has something important to do with hissubsequent behaviour. But genes exert their effects through the brain. Ifyou want to predict and control a person's behaviour, the brain is the placeto start. Over the course of the next decade, scientists may be able topredict, by examining a scan of a person's brain, not only whether he willtend to mental sickness or health, but also whether he will tend todepression or violence. Neural implants may within a few years be able toincrease intelligence or to speed up reflexes. Drug companies are huntingfor molecules to assuage brain-related ills, from paralysis to shyness (seearticle). (copied below)A public debate over the ethical limits to such neuroscience is longoverdue. It may be hard to shift public attention away from genetics, whichhas so clearly shown its sinister side in the past. The spectre of eugenics,which reached its culmination in Nazi Germany, haunts both politicians andpublic. The fear that the ability to monitor and select for desirablecharacteristics will lead to the subjugation of the undesirable—or themerely unfashionable—is well-founded.Not so long ago neuroscientists, too, were guilty of victimising thementally ill and the imprisoned in the name of science. Their sins are nowlargely forgotten, thanks in part to the intractable controversy over themoral status of embryos. Anti-abortion lobbyists, who find stem-cellresearch and cloning repugnant, keep the ethics of genetic technology highon the political agenda. But for all its importance, the quarrel overabortion and embryos distorts public discussion of bioethics; it is a wonderthat people in the field can discuss anything else.In fact, they hardly do. America's National Institutes of Health has a heftybudget for studying the ethical, legal and social implications of genetics,but it earmarks nothing for the specific study of the ethics ofneuroscience. The National Institute of Mental Health, one of its componentbodies, has seen fit to finance a workshop on the ethical implications of“cyber-medicine”, yet it has not done the same to examine the social impactof drugs for “hyperactivity”, which 7% of American six- to eleven-year-oldsnow take. The Wellcome Trust, Britain's main source of finance for the studyof biomedical ethics, has a programme devoted to the ethics of brainresearch, but the number of projects is dwarfed by its parallel programmedevoted to genetics.Uncontrollable fearsThe worriers have not spent these resources idly. Rather, they have producedthe first widespread legislative and diplomatic efforts directed atcontaining scientific advance. The Council of Europe and the United Nationshave declared human reproductive cloning a violation of human rights. TheSenate is soon to vote on a bill that would send American scientists toprison for making cloned embryonic stem cells.Yet neuroscientists have been left largely to their own devices, restrainedonly by standard codes of medical ethics and experimentation. This relativelack of regulation and oversight has produced a curious result. When itcomes to the brain, society now regards the distinction between treatmentand enhancement as essentially meaningless. Taking a drug such as Prozacwhen you are not clinically depressed used to be called cosmetic, ornon-essential, and was therefore considered an improper use of medicaltechnology. Now it is regarded as just about as cosmetic, and asnon-essential, as birth control or orthodontics. American legislators areweighing the so-called parity issue—the argument that mental treatmentsdeserve the same coverage in health-insurance plans as any other sort ofdrug. Where drugs to change personality traits were once seen as medicinalfripperies, or enhancements, they are now seen as entitlements.This flexible attitude towards neurotechnology—use it if it might work,demand it if it does—is likely to extend to all sorts of other technologiesthat affect health and behaviour, both genetic and otherwise. Rather thanresisting their advent, people are likely to begin clamouring for those thatmake themselves and their children healthier and happier.This might be bad or it might be good. It is a question that publicdiscussion ought to try to settle, perhaps with the help of a regulatorybody such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, whichoversees embryo research in Britain. History teaches that worrying overmuchabout technological change rarely stops it. Those who seek to halt geneticsin its tracks may soon learn that lesson anew, as rogue scientists performexperiments in defiance of well-intended bans. But, if society is concernedabout the pace and ethics of scientific advance, it should at least form aclearer picture of what is worth worrying about, and why.The ethics of brain scienceOpen your mindMay 23rd 2002 >From The Economist print editionGenetics may yet threaten privacy, kill autonomy, make society homogeneousand gut the concept of human nature. But neuroscience could do all of thesethings firstIN THE genetically engineered world portrayed in “Gattaca”, a movie made in1997, the hero and heroine attend a concert in which a pianist performs aconcerto that can be played only by a person with six fingers on each hand.This is a society in which genetic perfectionists have had their way. Theconcert-goers have been altered before birth to be free of such ailments asbaldness, obesity and diabetes, and to be tall, good-looking andintelligent. In that room, improbable as it may seem, only Ethan Hawke haslived a life free of genetic enhancement; he alone has had to take hischances with the genetic lottery of natural conception.Compare this scene to one in which the effects of neurotechnology(technology that makes it possible to manipulate the brain) are pervasive.The old man on the left of the aisle is being saved from Alzheimer's diseaseby an implant that bathes his brain cells in a healthy broth of chemicals.The little girl in the circle, vows her doctor, has a cortex that will oneday win her a Nobel prize in physics—if she keeps up the correct regime of“cogniceuticals”, of course. As a condition of their employment, thesecurity guards posted at the entrance had to undergo brain scans todemonstrate that they were free of propensities to uncontrollable rage. Themusicians on stage are on drugs that speed their reflexes, heighten theirhearing and assuage their performance anxiety. Not that different from“Gattaca”, is it?The mind's eyeAlthough often overlooked, advances in neurotechnology raise ethical andlegal questions of the same nature and gravity as advances in genetics.Concerns about genetic technology fall into three main categories: first,how much screening should be allowed for certain genetic traits; second, whoshould have access to such information; and third, what will happen whenthose traits can be modified at will, possibly in ways that challenge thevery idea of what it is to be human.Neuroscientists may soon be able to screen people's brains to assess theirmental healthhttp://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1143317Concerns about neurotechnology fall into the same three groups.Neuroscientists may soon be able to screen people's brains to assess theirmental health; to distribute that information, possibly accidentally, toemployers or insurers; and to “fix” faulty personality traits with drugs orimplants on demand. They may also, according to some philosophers, exposefallacies in philosophical thinking that go to the heart of human nature byshowing how the brain actually makes decisions.Until recently, neurobiologists have been constrained in their research bythe consideration that most kinds of experiment with the human brain areseen as unethical. Tradition has it that they must sit around with theirfingers crossed, hoping that a patient will walk through the door sporting atumour or other injury in a part of the brain whose function is not yetunderstood. Ideally, this patient will show some odd behaviour—say, beingable to multiply but not add, or mistreating cats but not dogs—that can betied to the injured area. Thus, painstakingly, a map of which parts of thebrain do what can be built up.Over the past decade, however, machines for measuring brain activity haveproliferated. There are now half a dozen such technologies, ranging from oldfavourites, such as electro-encephalography, to new-fangled methodsincluding magneto-encephalography, which measures the brain's magneticfields, and single-photon-emission computerised tomography, which tracksradioactively tagged chemicals around the organ. One of the most importantnew techniques is functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), whichemploys powerful magnetic fields to monitor the rate of blood flow in thebrain, and thus to determine which parts are particularly active.With the help of fMRI, researchers can observe which brain areas areinvolved when somebody performs a particular task or thinks along particularlines. That could be a boon. It could, for example, identify children whosebrains are not maturing normally—making possible early intervention with,say, special lessons.Researchers can observe which brain areas are involved when somebodyperforms a particular task or thinks along particular linesA study to be published shortly in Neuroimage shows how this might work.Vinod Menon and his colleagues at Stanford University have been using fMRIto investigate how people's brains behave when they are subjected to theStroop colour-word interference task. The Stroop task is a well-establishedpsychological test that presents subjects with the names of colours printedin ink that does not match the colour named. The subjects have to name thecolour of the ink, not the word that has been printed.As people mature, their brains get better at coping with the challenge thetask poses. Dr Menon has found that children, adolescents and adults showprogressively different patterns of brain activity which appear to reflectthis improvement. He has discovered that a child whose brain is not maturingnormally will show an unusual pattern of brain activation when performingthe test. That reveals problems with brain development that an ordinaryquestionnaire-based psychological evaluation does not.Nobody could object to such a worthy enterprise. But what about thefollowing idea? Greg Siegle and his colleagues at the University ofPittsburgh are studying depression. In a paper published in this month'sissue of Biological Psychiatry, they report that when depressed individualsare read a list of depressing words, they show a different response in aregion of the brain called the amygdala from that displayed by “normal”individuals. The amygdalas of the depressed hum away for as long as 25seconds after hearing a depressing word. Those of individuals who have neverbeen depressed stop showing activity after ten seconds. Dr Siegle suggeststhat the depressed subjects ruminate on, or think repeatedly about, sadwords, while the undepressed subjects simply move on.Since the amygdala is known to be involved in processing emotion, that isnot altogether startling. Suppose, though, that job-recruiting agencies werefitted with fMRI machines (unlikely at the moment, given their expense, butnot unimaginable). An individual who wished to conceal evidence ofdepression from possible employers would have a much harder time doing so inthe face of fMRI, than in the face of a little light form-filling.Just as genetic markers can be associated with physical states, so featuresof brain scans will surely be linked to a wide variety of mental statesAnd that may only be the start. Just as genetic markers can be associatedwith physical states, so features of brain scans will surely be linked to awide variety of mental states. fMRI screening might, for example, become afoolproof method of lie detection—one that could catch out even “astuteliars” who pretend to have impaired memories when put under pressure by aninterrogator. Other personality traits, such as tendencies to aggression orrisk-aversion, could also yield their secrets to fMRI's probing glance.Steal your faceMedical privacy is another area that brain scanning could compromise. One ofthe most immediate threats is a little-considered side-effect of thescanning process: that what is scanned and recorded is actually the head,and not merely the brain. In other words, a magnetic scan of a brain alsocontains enough information about the front of the skull to recreate arecognisable depiction of the scanned subject. The result is that, unlike agenetic profile, which does not, by itself, tell you who has been profiled,no magnetic-resonance image is inherently anonymous.Neuroscientists are already building up databases of brain scans forresearch purposes. In 2000 John Van Horn and Michael Gazzaniga, twocognitive neuroscientists at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire,launched a database called the fMRI Data Centre, to help disseminate fMRIstudies among scientists. They hope that it will spur discoveries inneuroscience in the same way that GenBank, a public database of genesequences, has spurred discoveries in genetics. The fMRI Data Centre makesraw data from such studies available to researchers, and will soon organisethe data so that interesting features can be extracted from itsystematically. So far, says Dr Gazzaniga, roughly 400 researchers aroundthe world have requested data from the centre. Those data are shipped tothem on compact discs to do with as they please.One answer to the lack of anonymity of magnetic-resonance images is toscramble the picture in the part of the image that contains facialinformation. The managers of the Dartmouth database do just that. Suchscrambling, however, makes the data useless for some sorts of analysis. Itis therefore questionable whether the operators of other databases ofneuro-images (several are planned) will follow suit.Pictures of perfectionJust as with genetics, however, the spectre that most terrifies many ofthose who fear the advance of neurotechnology is that it will one day becapable of “enhancing” human beings. Some worry that this may blunt thedifferences between individuals, turning society into one homogeneous mass.Others see the opposite risk—a Gattacesque division between the privilegedand the unenhanced.Potential dystopias always make good press. But drawing the line betweennecessary therapy and discretionary enhancement is genuinely difficult. Someargue that society accepted the idea of so-called “cosmeticpsychopharmacology” when people first began using recreational drugs. Whohas not perceived himself to be wittier and more attractive than normal whenunder the influence of alcohol—or, indeed, seen wit and attractiveness inothers in the same circumstances?Another argument is that drugs for the brain are simply one more step down aroad taken by orthodontics, face lifts, Viagra and other medical extras.That may be so. But it could be a step in seven-league boots, forpharmaceutical companies are only just beginning to mine the spectrum ofpsychological ailments that flesh is heir to. Drugs to combat shyness,forgetfulness, sleepiness and stress are now in or close to clinical trials,not to mention better versions of drugs that have already swept society—whatArthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, calls“super-Prozacs”.One example of the trend towards making the normal treatable is researchinto “mild cognitive impairment”, the kind of slight deterioration in memorythat goes with getting old. Or that does for now, anyway. Many companies arehunting for drugs to fend off this sort of memory loss. Researchers atCortex Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, California, for example, are exploringmolecules known as ampakines. These attach themselves to nerve-cell proteinscalled AMPA receptors. That serves to amplify the transmission of signalsfrom one nerve cell to another. In particular, it amplifies the effect of asecond protein, the NMDA receptor, which is known to be associated withlearning. Meanwhile, Targacept, a firm based in Winston-Salem, NorthCarolina, is looking at another group of nerve-cell proteins, thenicotinergic receptors, whose activation has been shown to increasealertness and may fend off cognitive decline.Another technology, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), alsoholds out the promise of enhancement. Since nerve cells use electricalsignals, and magnetic fields can induce and disrupt such signals, a strong,well-aimed magnetic stimulation can affect the brain's operation. By holdinga magnetic coil over somebody's skull, a researcher can affect the activityof the piece of cortex beneath, while causing no pain to the subject.Sending repeated magnetic pulses disrupts neural transmission in that area,in effect creating a small lesion on demand. Although nobody is quite surehow it works, there is evidence to suggest that certain kinds of TMS improveperformance in memory and reasoning tasks.The death of free will?Screening, privacy and enhancement are all important issues, to be sure. Formany critics, though, they are side-shows. The really uncomfortablequestions raised by brain science are those that go to the heart of what itis to be human. Or, more specifically, what philosophers and theologianshave claimed is the heart of what it is to be human.In the West, at least, that defining quality is the concept of “free will”.Although some philosophers see free will as an illusion that helps people tointeract with one another, others think it is genuine—in other words, thatan individual faced with a particular set of circumstances really could takeany one of a range of actions. That, however, sits uncomfortably with theidea that mental decisions are purely the consequence of electrochemicalinteractions in the brain, since the output of such interactions might beexpected to be an inevitable consequence of the input. It also sitsuncomfortably with the separate, but parallel, argument that correct moralchoices are the result of a sort of biological decision-making programme,shaped by evolution, rather than being arrived at by abstract reasoning.There are already cases where neurotechnology may have a practical effect onpeople's moral developmentWhatever the philosophical arcana of the field, there are already caseswhere neurotechnology may have a practical effect on people's moraldevelopment. Erik Parens of the Hastings Centre, a think-tank in Garrison,New York, is concerned that it could, for example, “reduce the number ofways acceptable to be a person”.To illustrate this point he says that the act of giving a normal, healthychild Ritalin, a drug used to treat so-called hyperactivity, is really “asubstantive moral choice”, because it tells that child that he needs tochange to be acceptable. If forgetfulness, xenophobia and a whole host ofthe other eccentricities that make up a person's character become optionaltraits rather than inevitable ones, people will be more inclined todiscriminate against the bearers of those traits.Discoveries in neuroscience may also have profound legal implications. Mostcourts, for example, accept a claim of insanity as a defence in certaincriminal cases. If a propensity towards aggression or violence is shown tohave a biological basis in the brain, a lawyer may argue that his clientcould not control his violent urges. Courts may be asked to treatbrain-image data as exculpatory evidence, which shows that a suspect is notreally guilty of a crime he has committed.Donald Kennedy, a neuroscientist who is also editor of Science, says it islikely that “some extension of the domain of exculpatory conditions” will bemade as a result of neuroscientific advances. In any case, each jurisdictiontreats insanity claims in its own way, so they may well disagree overwhether brain-image data are exculpatory. In Texas, for example, all that aprosecutor needs to demonstrate is that a suspect knew “the differencebetween right and wrong” at the time of the crime. Even individuals who areclearly insane can be found guilty if they meet this test.Soul-searching questionsIn many ways, therefore, thinkers who are wrestling with questions of freewill, the soul and human nature are seeing the terms of their debate alteredby modern brain science. But the history of the debate may offer consolationto those who fear that neurotechnology is a hair's breadth from catapultingsociety into a “post-human future”, as Francis Fukuyama termed it in thetitle of a recent book. The human soul—or its physiological equivalent—hasproved surprisingly elusive.René Descartes was a philosopher who believed that he had found the exactpoint in the brain where the body and soul meet. Rather unromantically, thestructure he chose was the humble pineal gland. As the author of a populartextbook on the subject dryly notes, however, “this now seems unlikelybecause pineal tumours do not cause the changes one would expect to findassociated with distortion of the soul.” There is a deal of searching to doyet before human nature gives up its secrets.