Neuroscientists say opportunities to misuse brain science abound By Tom Heneghan, Reuters, Updated: 3:20 p.m. CT Feb 14, 2007
PARIS - Neuroscientists are making such rapid progress in unlocking the brain's secrets that some are urging colleagues to debate the ethics of their work before it can be misused by governments, lawyers or advertisers.
The news that brain scanners can now read a person's intentions before they are expressed or acted upon has given a new boost to the fledgling field of neuroethics that hopes to help researchers separate good uses of their work from bad.
The same discoveries that could help the paralysed use brain signals to steer a wheelchair or write on a computer might also be used to detect possible criminal intent, religious beliefs or other hidden thoughts, these neuroethicists say.
"The potential for misuse of this technology is profound," said Judy Illes, director of the Stanford University neuroethics programme in California. "This is a truly urgent situation."
The new boost came from a research paper published last week that showed neuroscientists can now not only locate the brain area where a certain thought occurs but probe into that area to read out some kinds of thought occurring there.
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[The page where the article is shown did have a link to some information (Interactive: The Brain) on brain function, at a much more elementary level that needed to understand the implications of this "movement," but perhaps helpful to some if it's still there.]