Sunday, March 23, 2014

Neuroimaging

Hastings Center Report

Cover image for Vol. 44 Issue s2

March-April 2014

Volume 44Issue s2
Pages S2–S52, inside back cover–inside back cover

  1. Special Reports

    1. Introduction

      You have free access to this content
      Neuroimaging: Beginning to Appreciate Its Complexities (pages S2–S7)
      Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston
      Article first published online: 14 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/hast.293


      1. You have free access to this content
    2. Mais artigos de acesso aberto...
    3. New post on Mind Hacks


      A balanced look at brain scanning

      by vaughanbell
      Bioethics think tank The Hastings Center have published an excellent open-access report on 'Interpreting Neuroimages: The Technology and its Limits' that takes a critical but balanced look at the use of brain scans for understanding the mind.
      They've commissioned leading cognitive neuroscientists to write chapters including Geoffrey AguirreMartha Farahand Helen Mayberg, as well as having a chapter by some legal folks who discuss whether neuroimaging can teach us anything about moral and legal responsibility.
      The chapter by the brilliant Martha Farah is particularly good and takes a level-headed look at the critiques of fMRI and is essential reading if you want to get up to speed on what brain scans are likely to tell us about the mind and brain.
      The report is all in academic writing but if you're a dedicated neuroscience fan, it probably won't pose too much of a problem.

      Link to 'Interpreting Neuroimages: The Technology and its Limits'.
      vaughanbell | March 23, 2014 at 10:26 am | Categories: Inside the Brain | URL:http://wp.me/ptsTD-7E1
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      First Person: Exploring the Unconscious Brain

      Sometimes in science, results that don’t seem to make sense point the way to a gratifying insight. As a young man lay in bed, writhing and still barely conscious two years after a close escape from drowning, his mother gave him a small dose of the sedative zolpidem to help him rest. To her amazement, instead of becoming quieter, he awoke, recognized her, and even tried to speak. This case and others like it have fascinated Nicholas Schiff (below), the Jerold B. Katz professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College. Recently, Schiff talked with Sandra Ackerman, senior editor of American Scientist, about the hidden brain activity he thinks may be taking place in some patients who appear unable to respond.
      News stories about the results of a major stroke or trauma to the brain seem to use a bewildering variety of terms to describe the patient’s medical condition: coma, unconsciousness, vegetative state, and so on. How many different levels of consciousness really exist in the human brain?
      Click to Enlarge ImageMany—but for the purposes of this discussion, we can think of consciousness as a spectrum. At one end is our everyday consciousness, and at the other is total unconsciousness, as represented by coma. Actually, the term “coma” covers two very similar states: One is the kind of coma that results from a severe head injury or cardiac arrest, and the other is the state induced in a hospital setting by means of general anesthesia./.../

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