Thursday, February 10, 2011

Can morality be changed magnetically?

    This article, written by Elizabeth Landau of CNN.com (March, 2010) discusses a recent rTMS study conducted by Liane Young at MIT in which researchers were able to manipulate participants' moral judgment using rTMS. Past studies have shown that people with high activity in their right temporoparietal junctions tend to judge others' morality based on their intentions, rather than the outcome of the situation. By temporarily interrupting brain activity in this region using rTMS, researchers found that people were significantly more likely to base moral judgments on outcome, rather than intention. This is an interesting study and has a lot of implications for the ways in which we make moral decisions. Perhaps sociopaths and psychopaths have abnormal right temporoparietal junctions.


http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/30/can-morality-be-changed-magnetically/?iref=allsearch
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4 comments:

  1. FelipeFebruary 10, 2011 at 1:13 PM

    That's a very interesting point on sociopaths and psychopaths. By what we have seen in articles and heard in class, rTMS keeps advancing and safely disturbing regions of the brain to manipulate how a person would typically react. If this particular study keeps advancing, then perhaps rTMS could be used to treat sociopaths and psychopaths in the right temporoparietal junctions and "tweak" that permanently. If successful, then this would be an alternative for a death sentence. These criminals could then just be treated and kept under control in prisons.

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  2. laurboddFebruary 10, 2011 at 1:41 PM

    I think this is a very appropriate article after our discussion today in class. With all of this talk about morals I am very curious about what people say they would do vs what they actually do in the situation. Can this also be altered by rTMS? I find it interesting that it was found that people also judge either by intention or outcome.

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  3. Jideka NwosuFebruary 10, 2011 at 5:53 PM

    I find this article to be very interesting. Repetitive TMS has had an increasing influence, where they find that new methods of treatment are being discovered. The ability to manipulate how a person reacts to a person speaks a lot towards our future. Is it possible to use this type of treatment for other types of issues, such as racism, violence/aggression, homophobia in extreme cases, where there have been hate crime? Perhaps, one day, this could be a viable tool for all types of social issues in our enviroment.

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  4. Ayten SalahiFebruary 23, 2011 at 6:05 PM

    The implications of this study are a bit scary! rTMS studies are a bit questionable in my opinion. The idea of deactivating and reactivating various brain regions would make me uncomfortable as a participant; nonetheless, rTMS always seem to yield fascinating study results.

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