free-will

Will these five NeuroRights help harness emerging neurotechnologies for the common good?

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Data for Good: Bio­log­i­cal Sci­en­tist, DSI Mem­ber Rafael Yuste on the Eth­i­cal Devel­op­ment of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty release):

“Brain-com­put­er inter­faces may soon have the pow­er to decode people’s thoughts and inter­fere with their men­tal activ­i­ty. Even now the inter­faces, or BCIs, which link brains direct­ly to dig­i­tal net­works, are help­ing brain-impaired patients and amputees per­form sim­ple motor tasks such as mov­ing a cur­sor, con­trol­ling a motor­ized wheel­chair, or direct­ing a robot­ic arm. And non­in­va­sive BCI’s that can under­stand words we want to type and place them onto screens are being developed.

But in the wrong hands, BCIs could [Read more…] about Will these five Neu­roR­ights help har­ness emerg­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies for the com­mon good?

Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on Neuroscience & Psychology

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Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

We are glad to wel­come you to our blog car­ni­val. After a short hia­tus, Encephalon is backScience Debate 2008 and gath­er­ing steam. We have pre­pared this “revival” edi­tion just for you, so you can be well informed and impress us all dur­ing the upcom­ing Sci­encede­bate 2008.

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the ques­tions posed by 24 blog­gers on neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy issues. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

Big Ques­tions

Do I deserve to vote even if I don’t have Free Will? (Marc at Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Challenged).

If cul­ture sculpts our brains, what can our brains do to refine our cul­ture first? (Stephanie at Brains On Purpose).

Is God more than a fly­ing brain? (Jes­si­ca at bioephemera).

Is Your brain real­ly read­ing This? (Pete at Brain Hammer).

A Few Intru­sive Questions 

Do you play any musi­cal instru­ment? (Megan at SharpBrains).

[Read more…] about Encephalon: Brief­ing the Next US Pres­i­dent on Neu­ro­science & Psychology

Brain Health and The way we age now

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The New Yorker April 30th issue includes a superb arti­cle on The Way We Age Now: Can med­i­cine serve an aging pop­u­la­tion?. Atul Gawande pro­vides a great (and a bit depress­ing) sur­vey on the geri­atrics field: more and more need for prac­ti­tion­ers, with less and less supply.

now, a cou­ple of quotes and data points that are very rel­e­vant to our efforts around healthy brain aging.

  • “for most of our hun­dred-thou­sand-year existence—all but the past cou­ple of hun­dred years—the aver­age life span of human beings has been thir­ty years or less. (Research sug­gests that sub­jects of the Roman Empire had an aver­age life expectan­cy of twen­ty-eight years.)”
  • “Inher­i­tance has sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle influ­ence on longevi­ty. James Vau­pel, of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Demo­graph­ic Research, in Ros­tock, Ger­many, notes that only six per cent of how long you’ll live, com­pared with the aver­age, is explained by your parents’ longevi­ty; by con­trast, up to nine­ty per cent of how tall you are, com­pared with the aver­age, is explained by your parents’ height. Even genet­i­cal­ly iden­ti­cal twins vary wide­ly in life span: the typ­i­cal gap is more than fif­teen years.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing. First, let’s appre­ci­ate our incred­i­ble life expectan­cy today; we are lit­er­al­ly push­ing the envel­op of how to main­tain healthy brains and bod­ies. By his­tor­i­cal stan­dards, many of us are liv­ing on “bor­rowed” time. Sec­ond, there you have some evi­dence for the impor­tance of our expe­ri­ence and our lifestyle on how long we live. In terms of healthy aging, on aver­age, nur­ture seems to be at least as impor­tant as nature, and the one more in our con­trol to take action today.

You can learn more on the Suc­cess­ful Aging of the Healthy Brain: a beau­ti­ful essay by Mar­i­an Dia­mond on how to keep our brains and minds active and fit through­out our lives.

Relat­ed blog posts