might be interesting to explore ways that we might be able to prevent skepticism from creeping into the media.

I feel like a lot of what we know or think about these technologies comes from stereotypes in the media (such as movies, shows, etc.).

Cant this tool also be used for a similar purpose to fMRIs and EEGs discussed earlier in the course?

I think it may be interesting to look at how people's perspectives on NEs change when these drugs are taken in the workplace to contribute to a greater cause versus when they are taken in school to achieve a specific test grade.

What if a person consumes and NE without the intention of improving cognitive performance? Would this still be neuroenhancing?

Does this mean that the distribution of scores will change if, for instance, everyone takes NEs (i.e. the variability among scores will decrease)?

I am still in conflict as to how I feel about people with learning disabilities taking these drugs. I think it depends on how we characterize a disability. Do we characterize a learning disability in the same context as a medical disability, or is it simply a term that we apply to someone who falls on the lower end of the distribution due to natural variability?

I think NE and doping should discussed within slightly different contexts. In terms of NEs, it can be argued that these can be taken for the betterment of society (to improve productivity in the work place, contribute to the economy, etc), whereas doping is done purely for selfish reasons to gain an upper hand on competitors. Also sports are specifically designed to measure the natural abilities of the human body whereas intelligence and productivity are used primarily in the workplace to advance society.

Is this referring to that enhancement technologies create an unrealistic standard (for beauty, intelligence, performance, etc.)?

I think its kind of interesting how one individual can hold these values in one area of life and not another. For instance, I as an athlete am very strongly against any type of performance enhancer. Yet, I believe it is fair to distribute amphetamines to those with learning disabilities.

I don't think this is an unfair assumption, considering that we have regulations like these already in place in the current day. For instance, students would not be able to return to Bates if they did not receive their covid-19 vaccination.

In reality this is why we have prescribed medications to prevent individuals who don't actually need the medication for getting it and using it as an unfair advantage.

I think it is important that were improve the conditions of jails so that we can improve the condition/ severity of those with severe mental illnesses rather than make them worse. Yet, I think that consequences also need to be administered for those who commit a crime, since they are the ones responsible for the crime. Just like when you are teaching a child, you punish them when they do something bad/wrong, but that is followed by a lesson or teaching to help them improve in the future.

This gets back to my point from before about how normality is a generalization based on trends of the population. Thus, normality can change with the time and settings of events.

normality is all relative to the standard trend of the population.

Doesn't this still demonstrate an intention though, because the intention is to respond correctly. Therefore even if the body responded to the wrong stimuli, it had the correct intention.

In which cases do we know we can trust this information and when we can't?

But your brain is supposed to signify "you." I think it is hard to decipher if someone is consciously acting or if it was "programmed" into their system because the brain controls both the conscious and subconscious.

The study of neuroscience is really tough to use in the criminal system because all of the information is relatively new, unlike other studies of science such as biology, chemistry, etc. So how do we determine when it is okay to start accepting studies in neuroscience as use for evidence.

Does this mean it can target specific memories?

if this is successful, this could be a more targeted approach to treat PTSD. Although, I wonder if this just targets the emotion associated with the memory or if it actually erases he memory itself.

I wonder if this drug would dampen good memories too.

Are people with PTSD really in a human state or are they living a "less-than-human" life? Is it worth living for these people if every day they relive the same dramatic event?

I thought that these drugs didn't necessarily change the memory, but rather dampen the emotions associated with particular memories. Still this could be something to be cautious of because if a person is not able to recall their true emotions regarding an incident, they may not be able to reveal how horrifying it was.

I think this is a good idea to not only seek an answer from the patient themselves, but trusted individuals close to them.

I wonder how the author defines "sound judgement?" This may be an important topic to define considering that there are a lot of implied grey areas.

how do we ensure that this enforced?

But it could increase the preventative measures taken in order to decrease the severity.

IS this even possible if AD could in some situations be cause by environmental factors?

Already this article is setting off a bit of a red flag for me. It seems as though it is much easier to promote ones biases by drawing correlations between something scientific and one's beliefs in neuroscience. Although it is "scientific," it doesn't necessarily make this information unbiased.

How do we prevent this from happening when the press and the general public are the ones who are supposed to be interpreting the studies that are published?

I feel like there is so little understood about the brain that people are just looking for an explanation of how it works, despite if this explanation may not be fully accurate. Yet biological processes and research within this field is something that we already seem to trust, so its application to neuroscience would make sense that this is the best candidate to offer that description.

Reverse inference

I think we talked about this in class before. Many people see a scientific study and assume that it is most likely a trustable source, yet they fail to acknowledge or even realize how little we know about the brain in comparison to other studies of medicine. Not to mention a general lack of knowledge about the brain amongst the general population makes them more likely to trust a neuroscience study rather than something that is widely researched.

I still wonder what the point of all this research is. I suppose it provides a wealth of useful animal behavioral information, but the question is how they are planning to apply this technologies and if it has larger implications outside of the animal behavior (such as in humans). I believe this technology and information is extremely valuable if used in the right contexts, but as we have seen, it may also be used for applications such as artificial brain/motor control.

Could we somehow create artificial learning? This may be interesting because it could be a way to "update behavior" in robots"

Its a cybrog! combining robot and organic matter may be the first steps to unlocking the secrets to AI.

I wonder if this "behavior" (or the act of swimming) activates the same regions of the brain in a goldfish as it does a human.

Is this what we think of as brain control? This is amazing that they can do it in animals, but it is also scary to think that this technology is out there because it could be applied to humans.

I think this may be an instance where the decision is passed from he individual to a doctor or a family member.

So then how would you be able to catch someone before they commit a crime without reading their thoughts? I wonder what evidence these psychiatrists are using. If its anything like the investigative evidence from the cannibal cop I would have assumed that this would be more accurate.

How does one demonstrate that a person is mentally ill and dangerous? How much proof do you have to provide?

would this then be an instance where criminal behavior is justified?

But isn't this why AI still hasn't been created? Because there is a difference between our thoughts and a computer program.

Who has access is the big question. People tend to show a different side of them in public than the one that they show in person. How do we know who we can trust with our personal information. What would their intentions be with the information they have?

This is a very slippery slope. just because something is the lesser of two evils, doesn't make it good.

Again is't there a way around this? Just like the polygraph test, is there a way to train yourself so that a lie can generate the same neural response as a truth.

Yes, but how do you know and how much proof do they have to back up this claim?

I think that one of the concepts that we talked about in class comes to play here about when it is okay to start using scientific data as proof in court cases. Some factors that may come into play may be how widely accepted the research is, ideological beliefs, how much data was collected to back up the claim made from the research, etc.

I'd like to introduce the grey area here. Patterns certainly can be extremely helpful in a "diagnosis" or making any sort of inference, but what happens when someone displays only certain parts of a pattern and not all of it? Where would you draw the line for a positive result vs. a negative result?

I think that this kind of refers back to a point made in our last class that there are many internal and external factors that can activate one neurologic response, therefore trying to attribute that response to one cause is difficult.

This is interesting that they use correlation as the basis for their inferences, especially since correlation is not always causation.

This would be interesting to compare to the polygraph test to see how many false positives and false negatives this type of test would produce. As we discussed in class the polygraph test detects if someone is "lying" based on the activation of their sympathetic nervous system. How specific can the fMRI get in its detection of lying? What type of activation is it looking for? How accurate can it be and what are the guidelines for lying?