cc
>> Tom Zinnen: Welcome, everybody, to Wednesday Nite at the Lab.
I'm Tom Zinnen. I work here at the UW Madison Biotechnology Center
behalf of our partners, Wisconsin Alumni Association and and for UW Extension, and on
Wisconsin Public Television, thanks again for coming to
Wednesday Nite at the Lab.
We do this every Wednesday night, 50 times a year. I'm delighted to be able to
introduce three speakers tonight
who are going to be telling us about the unusual if not unique new program in neuroscience and
public policy here at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
one little brush with public I was Congressional Science Fellow 10 years ago, that's my
State Capitol on it and the poU.S. Capitol on it and thea pretty fascinating aspect to be able to have something at the
wide ranging. We have three speakers, imDavid Weimer, Kim Farbota,e and public policy are pretty
David Weimer is a professor of and Ron Kalil.
public affairs and political science.
of energy, environmental, criminal justice, and health He's done research in the areas
"Medical Governance," assesses policy. His most recent book, titled
the processes by which rules for the allocation of transplant
He is a past president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and a fellow of the National Academy
of Public Administration. Kim Farbota is a second year
She graduated from the student in the neuroscience and public policy program.
University of Illinois in 2009 with degrees in political science and biological
psychology. She is supported by a fellowship
from the NIH Institutes on Aging for her research examining the
long-term consequences of traumatic brain injury in human subjects. She intends to pursue a research
career while remaining active in
science policy in a consulting capacity. And Professor Ron Kalil is a
professor here in neuroscience
and is the director of neuroscience and public policy
Laboratory for Biological Imaging. program and of the WM Keck
using transplanted neural stem His research interests focus on exploring the feasibility of
cells to repair the injured brain and on the generation of new nerve cells in the adult
brain.
I've been intrigued personally by the series of neuroscience presenters we've had in the last
few months here at Wednesday
Nite at the Lab. I'm particularly looking forward
Please join me in welcoming Professor Kalil to Wednesday to these three tonight.
Nite at the Lab. [APPLAUSE]
Ronald Kalil: So this is
hear directly about some going to be probably on unusual presentation because you come here every Wednesday night to
science, and although we could add to the neuroscientists that you've heard from, what we're
really going to talk to you about is a program that was started about five years ago to try to prepare scientists who
are inclined to go out into society and help to shape policy
to give them the skills that they need to do that.
Most scientists tend to work in their labs and focus on their research and rarely look across the street at what is happening
in the larger community of
society. And for those who do want to
interact, they don't know how to look across the street and maybe
talk the language, in general, they don't know how that other
they usually lie down until the thought goes away. part of the world works, and so
And this is no good. This is no good for our society,
and it's really no good for our scientists. So the whole raison d'etre for
two essentially isolated worlds. this program was here we have
We have the world of science and we have the world of society, and under normal circumstances
they remain isolated and they move forward in parallel. The aim of the program is as
It's to train people who will be simple as can be.
skilled in science, in particular in neuroscience, and also skilled in the tools that
are necessary to shape public policy. And so they will earn two degrees in this program.
They will earn a PhD degree in
neuroscience, and they will be qualified researchers to go out and make new discoveries about
how the brain works, and they will also have the opportunity
to earn either a master's degree in public policy, which will
prepare them for making a contribution largely in domestic
which will prepare them for working on international issues. policy, or a master's degree in international public policy,
And hopefully on May the 19th they will have the
opportunity to combine their PhD
in neuroscience with a JD in law.
cross-overs that the program So these are the three
sits on top of and permits students in an integrated program to move forward and earn
these combined degrees. So why is this important? Well, in April of 2009, Bruce Alberts, who was formally the
president of the National Academy of Sciences and is now
the editor, the chief editor, of Science Magazine, the most
prominent and influential science journal in the United States, he wrote a seminal
Science, and it made one simple claim: that the way things are editorial titled Science for
scientists and society closer together. gAnd when I read the article, I have to do something to bring
other person who feels this way. said well, at least there's one
And so I wrote to Bruce and I said Bruce, we have the same sort of notion that you do and
we've done something about it.
We've created a graduate program to train people who will be able
closer together. to bring science and society
And he was so excited he said send us a description of our program and we'll publish it in
Science, which we did and he
did, and then I was able to persuade him this past spring, because he is now an US Science
Envoy and is spending most of his life on an airplane in
different parts of the world, to come here, and he lectured in
the seminar which holds the program together. So there have been efforts, long-standing efforts, underway
in the country to try to do something about these two separate worlds.
Association for the Advancement of Science, indicated up there And for many years the American
have PhDs in science to go to Washington and try to get a taste of how government works. policy program who people who
direction. And this is a step in the right
Washington and they have tried Okay? But they've been trained as scientists and now they go to
to pick up on their own how it's going to work.
Technology Fellowships are a The California Science and
remarkably progressive initiative. The fellowships are supported
by the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation. And what these fellowships do is
California state legislature for they place scientists in the
a year so that they can have a year's experience seeing how
like sausage, you don't want to know, and the legislators can have an opportunity to interact legislatwith scientists.be it's
So this helps to break down the barriers of people coming from
very different worlds talking to each other.
And the AAAS has had, for a long
has made an effort to try to time, a formal program in scientific freedom, responsibility, and law, which
provide an opportunity for scientists who want to be interested in things outside of
their field to gain that
knowledge. But none of these programs are
the two worlds. They're providing opportunities and it's up to the people who trahave an interest to takein
advantage of the opportunity and
society is the relationship between neuroscience and the Now one of the major areas that is now linking neuroscience to
of public policy that exists in our society. law, which one can say is perhaps the most codified form
And the amount of activity underway in the country on
neuroscience and the law is just
phenomenal, and so here is a website describing a conference that was held in March of this
year on law and the brain.
And here are some of the issues that were raised during that conference.
And I think Kim is going to talk
issues that come out of neuroscience that influence the exlaw.. But these are all sorts of
How is the adolescent brain different from the adult? You may all be aware or you may not be aware that in this state,
10-year-olds who are involved in
brains and they are not cresponsible adults, and yet in adult justice system. 10-year-olds do not have adult
system. And the Supreme Court is said to Wisconsin, at present, they are swept into the adult justice
be, this year, looking at that issue.
Now how can the Supreme Court gain the knowledge that it needs
to try to make possibly a change in this law?
It has to hear from neuroscientists who will inform them what the 10-year-old brain is and how it differs from the
adult brain.
This is perhaps the most massive undertaking in the country. And this is a project on law and
neuroscience which is underway
at several universities around the country funded by a $10 million grant from
the MacArthur Foundation. This is the same MacArthur
probably heard about. And they thought that this issue Foundation that gives out the Genius Awards that you've
of how neuroscience intersects with the law was so important
that they charted these groups
And one of the first things that of faculty at different universities around the country to study it.
are taken up in the handbook has emerged is a guide, a handbook, for judges. And these are the issues that
that is given to judges to try to give them a short course on
and how it should influence their judgments. what's going on in neuroscience
all around the country and And the AAAS is now holding workshops on a quarterly basis
inviting judges who work in these different sectors of the country to come to these
workshops and learn about neuroscience and how they should
brain works into perspective take what neuroscience is revealing about how the human
when they decide how to deal with people who are brought before them in their courts.
And the person who runs these workshops was here recently and he said the judges are just competing with each other to get
a slot in the workshop because
modern science reveals it thebecause our common law ishat predicated on a notion that goes about the how the brain works as
that is that we are always at times rational actors perfectly aware of what we're doing, and back for hundreds of years and
bad, we should be punished. And neuroscience is saying no, therefore when we do something
predict that somebody's not going to be a rational actor. There are times when people have There are times when you can
help the brain to function, and at that time they're not imbalances in the chemicals that
responsible for their actions. So the whole issue is how can we
decide how to take the findings from neuroscience and help
people who have to implement the law realize that things aren't
as straightforward as what was
set down in England years ago upon which our common law is based.
And so that's the neuroscience
and public policy program. It's not going to just provide
train people. It's going to train people who an opportunity, it's going to
are comfortable in both domains. And so here are some of the
reasons for the program's existence.
I think one of them I've emphasized.
It's just absolutely essential
science and the policies that fare based on it are affectingo out into stheir lives.or people in society to appreciate how
And if you had to choose one Okay?
science to maybe get something like this bridging program
the logical choice. Because throughout the entire life cycle of a human being from underway, neuroscience would be
developing in a mother's womb to the time that they're still
And there are policies at every stage and there are laws at every stage of the life cycle which neuroscience can help to
inform. And so, as I've mentioned now 25
times, it's the purpose of the neuroscience and public policy
program to help shape those policies and if the degree on May 19th is approved by the last
committees that it has been reviewed by, then we'll be of the five university
training neuroscientists who can help shape the law.
So this is just a summary.
In 2007, when we took our first class, we offered a PhD degree in neuroscience and, as I said,
a master's degree in public policy with an emphasis on
public policy. Three years later, last year, we
got approval to offer a second
master's option in international public affairs because many young people are very interested
in working outside the country
on international issues. And, as I say, awaiting final approval, the outcome will be
known later this month, will be a degree, a dual degree, in neuroscience and a JD in law. And so we hope that we will
release into the world a brand
new cohort of neuroscientists who are going to be multiple capabilities.
And there's no other program in the country that's trying to do this. There are a lot of people
watching us.
I received a telephone call from a faculty member at Dartmouth this spring, and she wanted to
teach a course on neuroscience
I directed her to the program's website, and I said there are a wlot of good links there, why her course.
program's website. don't you have a look at the
And so, yes, by all means, I should have announced that
game tonight. So if you have questions at any time, I'm through, but when qDave or Kim talk, feel freee
to interrupt or ask afterwards. Yes?
of...? >> Is there any other branch of science that's doing this kind
>> Not at present. >> Why neuroscience?
thinking about how children develop, neuroscience has something to say about that. >> Well, I think if you're
people become adults and their If you're thinking about how
brains don't become fully adult until their early 20s. This is something that 10 years
ago people said are you kidding me? I've got a teenage son. He's a complete adult.
He's a little wacky, but he's an
adult. He's not an adult.
developing until 20. The brain doesn't finish
do rapid things, very much more rapidly than their elders, but about that. Neuroscience says that teens can
they're completely incompetent when it comes to doing multiple
things at the same time.
can't talk on the phone, well most adults can't, and drive at Virginia the same time.rs using cell phones in cars because they
compromised by that. But teenagers are particularly
You move on in life and you start to fail. You start to be err to various
diseases of the brain.
The most awesome one is Alzheimer's disease. Neuroscience has something to
say about that and what should
be the policies that the country should put in place for people
life cycle. That's why I think neuroscience was a good place to start. at all of these stages of the
Australia has mental health courts, is the United States Yes?
Australia has mental health courts like our drug courts, but going to follow suit? >> Could you repeat it please?
they're called mental health courts, is the United States
going to follow suit? >> I am not aware of that so
therefore the best thing I can say is I don't know.
Yes?
>> I agree that neuroscience and policy need to be linked
have a lot to say about human development. together, but psychologists also
And maybe they'll pay attention and they'll start a psychology >> Exactly. I agree with you completely.
different from neuroscience. and public policy program because psychology is very
Neuroscience grew out of psychology back in the 1960s. It was pretty much codified as a
field in the 1960s. Wasn't recognized as a real field until probably the 1980s
at least one of the largest fields, in all of biology. and now is the largest field, or
Every year there is a annual meeting and at the last annual
meeting in November of last year
35,000 people from around the world came to the neuroscience meeting.
Some of them working on proteins, some of them working
on the most complex of human behaviors.
Okay, if there are no further questions, then my good friend
perspective from somebody in and colleague David Weimer will come, and he will give a
policy. >> Dave Weimer: Thanks, Ron. Can you hear me?
I should say that the neuroscience of public policy program exists because of Ron's efforts.
And over the last few years I've
resources. watched him make those efforts, making something out of a situation with very limited
So he's really the father of the program and along the way he's
keep it healthy. been the mother to it as well to
I want to say a little bit about public policy training at the University of Wisconsin.
The La Follette School trains people to participate in public decision, either as government
organizations, sometimes in the private sector. We train people both in public employees, people in nonprofit
analysis. And the policy analysis involves management and in policy
preparing them to understand situations, frame them as
problems we can do something
problems in terms of goals and about, develop alternative ways of dealing with those problems, systematically assessing those
values and constraints. It's very clear that those activities demand an ability to
interpret what's going on in the
scientific world. And I think that's a basic weakness within most of the
public policy training programs.
Occasionally we're lucky and get students who had been science majors as undergraduates.
Wonderful students to have but
And probably the only way you wcan understand it is to be a who thoroughly understand the scientific endeavor.
at the bench, you may not be scientist to be at the bench. However, if you spend your time
exposed to some of the workings of the world that are helpful in understanding how public policy
is made.
Now, you can think of neuroscience and public policy being connected in three ways.
One way is public policy
impinges neuroscience research. So funding decisions for supporting research, human
subjects rules, rules about the care of animals, those are all
set by public policy but have an impact on neuroscientists.
Then there are neuroscience issues that force reconsideration of public policies.
And I think what Kim is going to
be talking about gets close to that. So for example, now that we can
do various sorts of mapping of
the brain, should they be used by the public and private sector
And then finally there are the in various ways?
many issues that Ron already mentioned and that I'd like to
So Ron sort of stole my thunder and talked about it in terms of stages of life, and I'd just elaborate on a little bit.
bit. like to elaborate on it a little
So if we think of early childhood, and I guess maybe under the title developing
brain, there are a lot of public
nutrition makes a difference policy issues that can be informed by the research. So right now we recognize that
early in life. And we have some programs.
infants, and children that We have a program for women,
provides aid to low income people. We also have a growing
realization that early childhood
education may make a difference. Now, we can't afford to do
We'd like to have some knowledge everything.
about which investments are going to be most productive. And that's something that
neuroscience can do.
So as Ron mentioned, we can move on to adolescents and maybe this
And here we have obvious is the maturing brain.
justice system. Ron mentioned that 10-year-olds can be treated as adult felons treating people in the criminal
More generally in Wisconsin we and punished as adult felons.
treat people who are 17 years of age as adults, and if they
adult system. Is this a good use of resources? convicted, they go into the
We get into the adult phase, and I would label this may be the
patterned brain.
And here we have issues that come up like addiction, various sorts of what we might label
unacceptable preferences. Thinking of addiction, despite
years of efforts to discourage smoking, 20-some percent of
adults still spoke cigarettes.
The Food and Drug Administration now has authority to regulate cigarettes.
How should they view substitutes
for cigarettes? Smokeless tobacco? On the one hand, smokeless
tobacco products are much less
risky. On the other hand, are they going to increase relapses into
smoking?
Are they going to be more likely to stimulate experimentation
Those are the sorts of issues that come up. With respect to what I call unacceptable preferences, how do
we think about the punishment and treatment of pedophiles?
Can they be changed? Can they live in the community
and resist their temptations? Those are clearly issues that we
would want neuroscience to inform public policy.
Finally, we get to older adults,
I'm now in this category, maybe the declining brain. As Ron mentioned, we have
concerns about various sorts of dementia. Among people who are 65, the
disease is about 1%. prevalence of Alzheimer's
By the time we're 85, the prevalence is up to about 50%. When people become demented with
Alzheimer's or with other dementias, they rely on family
and emotional, get exhausted, so to take care of them. Family resources, both financial
Because nursing homes exhaust upeople's finances, ultimatelye the state pays for that nursing home through Medicaid.
And this problem is going to
become much more dramatic as our generation, I'm on the edge of
get older. the baby boom, as we turn 65 or
Here, again, a better understanding of the neuroscience will be valuable.
Particularly in helping us
decide when it's possible to detect Alzheimer's early before symptoms appear.
Maybe we will have better drugs.
We have drugs that slow it now. Maybe have better programs for helping people themselves
prepare and their families
prepare. Well, these are all sorts of
important that should be issues in public policy that are
to rely on people to do that informed by neuroscience. People in the public policy field right now generally have
translation. The sorts of people that the
program is training will be very neuroscience and public policy
policy process. So for all these reasons, myself to make sure that the best in neuroscience gets into the
and my colleagues in the La Follette School are very
grateful to Ron for creating
this program, and we very much enjoy working with him on trying
So thank you. [APPLAUSE] to make it a success.
Should I hold off questions, let Kim go and hold off?
Kim Farbota: All right, so my name is Kim Farbota.
and public policy program, As Ron said, I am a second-year student in the neuroscience
and I study, I use human neuro-imaging techniques to study traumatic brain injury.
But as Ron has been talking about and as Dave has been
talking about, we're focusing on the intersection of neuroscience
and public policy today.
And I am just trying to add some concreteness to that concept by introducing you an instance of
the intersection of these two fields that is emerging in our
court rooms today. And in particular, we're going
to be talking about how some
people are attempting to use neuroscientific techniques as perhaps a better method of lie
detection.
So the two primary questions I'm going to be addressing is,
neuroscience to determine if a first, are we able to use
person is telling the truth? How accurately are we able to do
And then secondarily, I want it ask you all to think about so?
whether or not it's ethical to do this?
What are the implications of
looking past what someone says and instead looking into the
that? What kind of privacy violations are we committing in our quest mental processes underlying
So first I'm going to give you to uphold justice?
some background on the fMRI technique. fMRI stands for functional
magnetic resonance imaging. And it's a technique that uses
the same machine, MRI machine as you have in any hospital.
A person lies out on that bench you see right there and their head is moved into the opening
And in the fMRI technique, the of that machine.
machine detects blood flow changes to different regions of the brain as the person either
is at rest or is doing some simple task like looking at pictures or reading words.
is that the areas of the brain And the assumption behind this
glucose than other regions of your brain that are at rest, and particular task, they need more oxygen and they need more
So as an example of that, the amygdala is a structure that because of that your body sends more blood to those regions.
MRI machine and we start running processes fear. So if we put somebody into the
this fMRI process and then we show them pictures of faces that are afraid or angry, that
triggers a natural, however subtle it may be, fear response in most people. And we're able to observe an
increase in blood flow to the amygdala region.
And that's the picture we're showing here.
That's just a slice of the brain
if you were to cut the head just like this and look at it head on, you'd see the increases of
blood flow right there. And I just want to remind everyone that this is an average
So some people may have more or less activation or increased response.
blood flow in that region. Some people may have it not
there at all but if he were to
take an average. If you had a hundred people do
something that looked about like this, on average you'd get
that. So that's the technique. And the basic premise behind the
technique is that you have
certain brain regions that are responsible for some mental processes and a different set of
brain regions responsible for another.
processes behind lying are And some individuals are of the belief that perhaps the
different than the processes behind truth telling. So you can extrapolate from that
perhaps if we were to image the brain while someone was telling a lie, it might look different
telling the truth. than it looks when someone is
And there are certain companies out there right now that are attempting to market this
technology to individuals,
lawyers, corporate entities, government bodies, etc, making
think they claim right now with 90% accuracy determine whether the claim that they are able to,
or not a person is telling the truth.
And they claim that in the near future they will have 99% accuracy. And also, I want to direct your
attention to this picture up
active during lie telling than here in the middle where it's indicating that those red regions are supposed to be more
truth telling. Whereas, the blue regions are supposed to be more active when
someone's telling truth.
there, those regions that are in So they focus on the prefrontal cortical regions. If you see in the top two brains
red are essentially right here in the prefrontal cortex which
executive control. is a region associated with
subconsciously suppress the urge And the assumption is that when somebody is telling a lie, they have to use executive control to
to tell the truth. And on this website they claim
problem with this technique is that right now the only major
However, myself, as well as a that lot of the rest of theound in the scanner and your results won't be quite right.
problems with this technique scientific community, believe that there are a lot more
that should be considered before we could possibly consider it for admissible evidence in a
court of law. First of all, as I noted
earlier, every person's brain is different.
The averages we see are based on
a small sample of people and there are exactly that. They are averages.
You can't know for sure that
just because a person's prefrontal cortex is activated when they say something that
that person is lying. There are a great number of reasons why it could be active. Second of all, there's a problem
just in construct.
It's very possible that a person may not know they are not telling the truth.
Eyewitness testimonies are
notoriously inaccurate because memory is not a recording,
So if you ask somebody to look memory is a reconstruction.
back on an event that happened several months or even years ago
they didn't know was significant and recall a small detail that
at the time, since they've been asked to think about it then they may have said okay, I think
this is what happened, I'm
happened. So if someone believes what they happened, and over time come to believe okay, that's what
terms of their brain activity as are telling is true, it's going to look exactly the same in
if what they're saying is actually true. Another major problem with this
technique is that there have
been a lot of studies done recently looking at "psychopaths" who we can assume
are a lot more likely than the
rest of us to commit crimes, particularly violent crimes.
have a characteristic where they But these people also tend to
don't feel conflicted about lying. And their brains look very
different during a lie than a normal person's brain would look. So in essence what that means is
those who are most likely to lie
And that's actually the same are least likely to look like they are lying in terms of this technique.
these images is there's no problem that the polygraph runs into. And then finally a problem when
adherent significance to them. They require interpretation.
plus or a minus. It doesn't just come up with a
means A,B, and C. AnSo because of that, there'snd salways room for bias and human is activated which probably
So now that we kind of have some error.
ideas about the possibilities of this technique, I don't think that this technique is very
accurate right now, but I do
want to say that there is a lot of potential in the future for it to become more accurate and
for a lot of the problems I described to be overcome with new science and better
But, even presuming that we could possibly become very constructs.
accurate in this technology, there's a few questions we might
want to consider on the side of ethics. First of all, if we could do
require people to comply with this type of technique like we this, could and should we
do sometimes with DNA samples in a court of law?
Is observing mental processes in
some way essentially different than taking DNA?
are we committing? What kind of privacy violations
And that's about all I have to say in my little introduction to
So I'm going to go ahead and this topic.
open the floor up to questions, comments for Dave, Ron, or myself about this or anything
else said.
Yes? >> About the latter issue of
informed consent. >> You could. Yes. ethics, you could always have
as a potential solution to the She's mentioned informed consent
ethical problems which is a very important thing.
It seems that an additional confounding variable would be that if people are afraid that Yes?
that could activate all kinds of you're reading their mind, that
other areas and just completely blow it. >> Absolutely.
Yes, the fear factor is definitely important, another issue.
Why did you choose to go into this program? >> The neuroscience and policy Yes?
To be perfectly honest, I just program?
I was very lucky to run into the had an interest in both fields. I wasn't sure at the time how I was going to combine them.
only program in the country that did it close to home. But as I've moved forward I've
seen a lot of the relevance of
the two, and I have a lot of hope for being able to combine
Which is? Your career? them in my career.
doing the policy in a consulting >> Right now I'm feeling like I want to stay a scientist and be
capacity. I really enjoy doing neuroscience but I'd really like
to help other scientists
contextualize it, and I think it's important that people who are involved in neuroscience
have an idea about policy.
Particularly because policy basically controls the future of our science via various funding
mechanisms. Yes?
>> Could you say something about how your work with traumatic
brain injury connects with the
public policy piece on the court system? >> I don't know about the court
system. In terms of public policy,
and in addition to the initial traumatic brain injury is becoming increasingly common,
injury early in life are almost eftwice as likely to developf long-term health effects. So people who have a brain
Alzheimer's later in life. Because of that, having more
information about traumatic brain injury is important for the structure of Medicare, etc, preventative measures, and also
because traumatic brain injury
injuries in the field so is very relevant to war veterans. A lot of people get blast
creating policies that establish a quick reaction to those injuries could be really
beneficial to a lot of people.
But to be honest I didn't pick it because of an overlap with policy.
I picked something that I thought would be good science and I figured I should also learn about policy.
So the connection maybe tenuous.
>> I guess I was wondering in relation to some of the same issues that would come up with
an adolescent in terms of the juvenile justice system and the immaturity of the brain and their behavior and in traumatic
brain injury the deficits that
result from the injury and their behavior. >> I think that traumatic brain
injury could definitely be used in a court of law, possibly in
conjunction with neuro-imaging evidence to substantiate a claim
that a person was not of their
right mind or of full capacity at the time when a crime was
I agree with that. committed.
There have actually been cases recently where that type of structural brain imaging, either
with a tumor or with an actual
lesion as would result from an injury, has been used effectively in the court to try
and mitigate blame or responsibility for an action. >> Do you know if the science has advanced far enough to make
it really germane to, let's say,
point that we've had to sort of recontextualize how we think >> I think that the science has advanced far enough to the
about a crime, at least from the neuroscientific side because, as
a neuroscientist, I believe that
pretty much every behavior can be at least partial biologically
So if we're able to say this explained.
person committed this crime because they have this defect, and therefore we shouldn't
punish them or we should punish them to a lesser extent, you're going to run into problems
who's committed a crime has some because by that logic anyone
form of a neurological deficit that's caused them to act in
So one thing that we've come to over and over again in our neuro that manner.
switch our mentality from thinking about can we blame this and public policy seminars is that we're going to have to
person and are they likely to do person for their actions to simply can we rehabilitate this
it again. So I think the science has advanced far enough to make
claims about that to the point
that it has caused some serious change in the way we think about the justice system.
Yes?
>> That's a very interesting and I think probably uphill path to take given the current climate
on Capitol Hill.
Are there people identified that either you or David or Ron know of in Congress who are trying to
establish themselves as leaders either in committees or in their
personal offices as people who are going to take the lead or
how neuroscience interacts with public policies, with legislation, with those kinds of
We saw that happen in the late things?
became leaders in Nanotech. 'Who's stepping out front ine leaderCongress now?ology. >> Ron's shaking his head no.
There have been iconic
Congress people who have come and they have advanced the cause of science in America, and Jacob
Javits is one who comes to mind.
There were people who took the welfare of science in the country as one of their major
priorities and worked relentlessly to advance it. I'm unaware of anybody now, especially, this wasn't so much
science as healthcare, when Ted Kennedy died, I'm not aware of
sends legions of people into the anybody who's doing this. The Society for Neuroscience
offices of Congress people around the calendar trying to inform them about what's going
on in neuroscience and how they should be thinking about it when
But no one seems to emerge as this generation's or this year's they're trying to develop policy.
anti-science attitude. or decade's science champion. >> There's almost an
[LAUGHTER] >> We have a lot of attitudes which are difficult in our congress, yes.
>> I would just add that one of the silver linings in times of fiscal stress for
states is it forces people to rethink criminal justice policy because there are many things we
are costly. And at least if we could start do that don't reduce crime and
weeding some of those out, I think we could make a lot of
progress. [INAUDIBLE] >> Wisconsin spends twice as
Minnesota does, without any obvious improvement in the much annually on prisons than
So we're ahead of Minnesota at something? number o[LAUGHTER]hat are committed.
We're flushing more money down >> Absolutely.
people that were incarcerated could probably be, as Kim ipointed out, rehabilitated.s rWe have a mind set that goese
back for many years in
Wisconsin: build, baby, build. >> Yes? >> Yes, the international policy
aspect of this, I'm having a
hard time thinking what topics would they deal with? >> Okay, what about countries
which are routinely developing, not developing but depositing toxins in their land without
the interactions between those knowledge whatsoever about what
toxins and the developing of the mature nervous system.
an advanced country. It's a big problem in
Can you imagine what it's like in an undeveloped country?
of how children in developing countries are treated and what There are huge issues in terms
that those children have a resources that country will put in the early years to ensure
chance to later mature and become productive citizens. So just about anything that you
can think of where neuroscience could inform policy,
And even for the United States in how we structure our domestically, the need is large in developing countries.
food aid to people overseas. It's important that children
receive certain nutrients for their brains to develop, and
agricultural surpluses have been. tSo there are a lot of issues force behind policy, using
but relevant to us. >> Yes? >> Are you using neuroscience to like that that are international
decisions in public policy study how decision makers make
decision makers actually and what parts of the brain?
Not me personally. [LAUGHTER]
>> They did a recent imaging study that demonstrated that
in brain activity between conservatives. there are profound differences
one group of people can hold So maybe at some point in the future we will understand why
dear a set of values which are diametrically opposed to the
people hold dear and what is values that another group of
going on differentially in the brains of each group of people. >> Is anybody working to
replicate that study? There's only one study on that
particular issue, isn't there? >> Yeah, there is only one
study.
And I'm not aware of whether anybody is replicating it.
relatively new assistant We had a recent talk by a
professor in the Department of Psychiatry whose work has achieved enormous attention
because he demonstrated that
people with traumatic brain injury can behave like psychopaths.
That goes to your question. And so he gave a talk demonstrating what was going on in the brains of psychopaths and
what the behavioral characteristics were, and I politely asked him if he was
of some people in our society who haven't been diagnosed as psychopaths but have exactly the next going to image the brains
And he just sort of chuckled and same behavioral characteristics.
said well, maybe I'll get to it. >> Is there going to be a special earmark in Congress to
fund that kind of research? [LAUGHTER]
>> Other questions? I[APPLAUSE] h.