Neuroscience Becomes Image Conscious as Brain Scans Raise Ethical Issues

摘要

Plug in the term fmri(functional magnetic resonance imaging) to PubMed and the search engine will generate tens of thousands of relevant citations. Since this brain imaging technique first appeared in the early 1990s, its use has "simply exploded," says Marcus Raichle, MD, professor of radiology, neurology, and anatomy and neurobiologyat Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, a pioneer in functional brain imaging.Not only are researchers using fMRI and other neuroimaging tools to examine basic sensorimotor and cognitive processes and brain pathology, they are also using them to explore complex brain functions involved in human motivation, reasoning, and social attitudes. This new ability to explore brain mechanisms is opening an array of opportunities to advance the understanding of the brain in health and disease.But the use of imaging techniques to peer ever more closely into the brain also has ethical implications. Neuroscience, like genetics, deals with the biological foundations of who we are, points out Martha Farah, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Like genetic data, brain scan findings raise issues of privacy, says Farah. In some cases, brain imaging may yield information that is even more personally significant than that generated by genetic tests. For example, she says, "genetic tests only provide information about traits, like personality traits, whereas brain scans not only can provide information about traits, they alsocan give insight into states-such as if someone is afraid at the moment."While it is not necessarily a bad thing to obtain this sort of information from brain imaging, explains Farah, "it can be misused. We have to safeguard privacy and begin to think about how we want to control the use of that kind of information."Such concerns about the uses and misuses of neuroimaging data have prompted neuroscientists such as Farah to join ethicists and others to address the challenges presented by these new neuroimaging capabilities, a key area in the emerging field of neuroethics.