AUSTRALIA: Science's Mind Games
April 10, 2004

Brain scans can now tell whether you're lying or racist. But there are ethical dilemmas about reading people's minds,
reports Deborah Smith.

James Wood has always been a whizz at maths. Now he knows why.

A brain scan on the young Australian has revealed he automatically uses much more of both sides of his brain to solve
mathematical puzzles than most people. James, 15, says his ability came naturally, and he had not given it much thought
before the scan. "So it was an interesting experience to see how my brain works," he says.

For Michael O'Boyle, one of the researchers who studied James and seven other mathematically gifted adolescent boys in
Melbourne, the experiment confirmed ideas he has been formulating for more than 20 years, but the research was only
made possible by recent advances in physics and computing that have improved our ability to probe our most complex
organ.

O'Boyle believes such brain imaging research could have a big impact on education in future.

"The more we learn about how the brains of geniuses and experts work, the more likely we will be able to develop
educational techniques to assist in optimising whatever talents people have, " he says.

However, the expanding field of brain research, in which Australian scientists feature prominently, also raises ethical
questions about the possible misuse of such information - be it in education or advertising.

Australian neuroscientists discussed concerns about this growing ability to "spy on the cortex", with Prime Minister
John Howard last year, at a meeting of his Science Engineering and Innovation Council.

Working party chairwoman Leanna Read says that while brain research will bring enormous health benefits, scientists do
not want a repeat of what happened with other new technologies, such as genetic engineering, where discussion about
ethical and social implications lagged.

For the mathematical experiment, the boys had to lie inside a large magnet and mentally rotate a shape. In this
technique, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, blood flow to regions of the brain is monitored,
indicating heightened activity in those areas.

As O'Boyle, a professor at the University of Melbourne, expected, the maths whizzes had a lot of activity in areas in
the right side of their brains, which governs spatial thinking. But they also co-opted areas in the left side, which
governs language.

They were better than most at exchanging information between the two hemispheres. In addition, the researchers were
surprised to find the boys also recruited areas called the anterior cingulate and caudate regions. "They used these to
orchestrate their enhanced resources," O'Boyle says.

A follow-up experiment is under way, and a group of university students studying critical thinking have recently had
their brains scanned. They will be rescanned in June when the students have finished the course, which teaches them to
understand a complex concept or argument by building a two-dimensional spatial map of its components.

MRI expert Gary Egan, of the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne, says the course has already been found to increase
performance on IQ tests. This time, though, the researchers suspect that the students are increasing activity in the
right, spatial side of the brain, to tackle a left-sided, language problem.

Dr Egan says the research could raise important questions for education. "Should we be taught to think before we are
taught other information?" he says.

Most brain research has a medical aim, to improve understanding of epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia,
dementia, attention deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions. But it also raises ethical
and social issues not just to do with education, but with the law, insurance, advertising, relationships and even
religion.

Overseas research has shown brain imaging is able to identify racist attitudes, lying, people's responses to movies and
erotica, and even why they prefer Coke to Pepsi.

Dr Uri Hasson, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, is a Clint Eastwood fan. That is why he chose the
spaghetti western classic, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in which Eastwood stars, for an fMRI experiment monitoring
the brains of people watching a movie.

Hasson found he could predict about 30 per cent of people's brain responses, particularly to emotionally charged or
exciting scenes or sudden twists in the plot. There is a "surprising tendency of individual brains to 'tick'
collectively," he says.

This kind of research could have medical applications, such as throwing light on why children with autism do not engage
with the world around them, Hasson says. But he is concerned it could also be used to fine-tune advertising or
political propaganda films so they evoke the desired response.

A United States "consumer consultancy" company, BrightHouse Neurostrategies, is already pushing the idea that the "next
important evolution in marketing" will be based on brain imaging. The consultancy's neuroscientists are working on "how
the brain thinks and feels" and "what drives consumer behaviour at a conscious and subconscious level", with the aim of
helping clients establish "loyal, long-lasting" relationships with those who buy their products.

At Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology, one of the many brain research projects has been to understand the
biological basis of body language - how the brain responds to gestures and movements, or subtle changes in eyebrow or
lip position that reflect different emotions.

Being able to read body language is vital for good social communication and mental health, as well as getting a message
across, says David Crewther, director of the university's Brain Sciences Institute. He says brain imaging is likely to
provide insights into many strongly held beliefs other than which soft drink is best. And religious conviction could be
foremost. "There are interesting developments in the US involving people with strong religious beliefs, and some good
neuroscience," he says.

Dubbed neurotheology, research overseas is probing why some forms of epilepsy can induce religious visions and whether
meditation leads to a sense of being "one with the universe" by disrupting the part of the brain that helps orient us
in three-dimensional space.

How familiar sounds, tastes or smells can bring strong feelings flooding back is being unravelled by researchers in
Sydney, using fMRI in combination with physical manifestations of emotions such as sweating and heart rate, as well as
eye movements. The University of Sydney's Brain Dynamics Centre at Westmead Hospital was first to identify the brain
networks that lie behind our emotional responses, by monitoring physical reactions to experiences at the same time as
imaging their brains.

The centre's director, Lea Williams, says we appear to have evolved a special brain network to store memories of
emotional states that are critical to our survival - physical and social. This network involves the body, a primitive
part of our brain known as the amygdala, and a frontal area involved in rational thinking.

Events can unconsciously trigger recall of the stored emotions, and working out what happens in the healthy "emotional
brain", and how this differs with gender or age, will help improve treatments for severe emotional disorders such as
schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress and borderline personalities, she says.

Associate professor Williams believes that because this kind of brain research can tap into the unconscious, it could
eventually have a role to play in the courts.

It may provide objective evidence, for example, that someone is suffering from a condition such as post-traumatic
stress disorder. "That would be a huge advantage," she says. She says scientific advances are making such technology
cheaper and more accessible.

But scientists also counsel caution in the use of such technologies. Executive director of the Brain and Mind Research
Institute at the University of Sydney, Ian Hickie, says applications for brain scans are "limited only by the
inventiveness of the scientists who use them".

Education will be a potential area for misapplication of discoveries, he believes, if brain imaging leads to new
techniques or drugs that can enhance the abilities of normal children - and the aspirations of pushy parents.

Attempts to promote creativity are already under way in Australia, with Allan Snyder of the Centre for the Mind having
recently shown that magnetic pulses that switch off parts of the brain can makes some people more natural artists and
more aware of details.

O'Boyle thinks Australia needs to take the same positive attitude to intellectual tall poppies as it does to talented
sports people. It may become possible with brain imaging, he predicts, to identify mathematically talented children at
a young age, for example, and guide their development.

"You might be able to look at their brain and say, 'You are probably ready for calculus now'," he says.

But he warns that the main concern would be if new knowledge was applied in an over-simplistic way, such as using brain
imaging to assess students for a course. "That would be a real dumb thing to do," he says.

SOURCE: The Age, Australia
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/09/1081326923559.html

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