Instructor: Michelle R. Greene, Ph.D

Email: mgreene2@bates.edu

Office hours: Option 1: Book me via calendar
Option 2: Stop by Hathorn 111 - I’m happy to meet when my door is open!

Logistics: T/Th 1:10 - 2:30 Bonney 210.

Prerequisites: NRSC 130, NS/PH 117, NS/PY 160, or PSYC 215.

Course Description

As our ability to measure, predict, and manipulate brain function progresses, so too does our need to grapple with the societal consequences of neuroscientific discovery. This course invites a critical examination of the ethics surrounding real-world neuroscience applications in the private and public sectors. This course will address psychopharmacology and cognitive liberty, neuroimaging for lie detection, weaponization of neurotechnology, and neuroprivacy in an era of data mining. You will engage two overarching questions: How does the practice of neuroscience simultaneously mirror and mould social attitudes and policy-making agendas? What does it mean to be a responsible consumer and producer of neuroscientific knowledge?

Introduction

The alternative title for this course is “Neuroscience for Future Presidents”. This title was loosely inspired by Richard Muller’s “Physics for Future Presidents” at UC Berkeley. Unlike the policy issues that involve physics, the ethical issues in neuroscience cut deep into the heart of human identity. Findings in neuroscience are being used to advocate for policies on education, criminal justice, drugs, abortion, and many others. These issues affect public policy decisions and personal choices: to whom do we afford rights, and how do we preserve these rights in the face of new technologies? How do we protect Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights when we can “read” the thoughts of another person? How do we preserve individual rights as we are better able to predict future psychiatric disease or criminal behavior? Can we improve our brains? Should we?

Whether or not you become president, citizens of the future will face critical decisions that involve neuroscience. The purpose of this course is to give you the cognitive tools to evaluate these vital decisions.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

  • Describe emerging ethical issues that accompany nascent technologies associated with studying and altering brain function.

  • Use current scholarly literature to critically assess the claims made about measuring and altering brain activity.

  • Work effectively within a team to compile, discuss, interpret, and present multiple perspectives on neuroethical issues.

  • Acquire a personal framework for bioethical thought that allows the justification of one’s moral beliefs.

Classroom Expectations:

Commitment to Diversity

I firmly believe that all people, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion can not only understand but find beauty, empowerment, and joy in computational neuroscience. I am firmly committed to making this class a safe space where everyone’s questions are heard and everyone’s ideas are respected. Specifically, this means:

  • You deserve to feel welcomes and celebrated for who you are. Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. Please let Michelle know immediately if you ever feel uncomfortable in class.
  • You deserve to be addressed in a way that reflects who you are. I welcome you to share with me your pronouns and/or preferred name at any time (either in person or via email). Similarly, please address your colleagues according to their expressed preferences.
  • You deserve to be physically healthy in class. We will be masking for at least the first two weeks of class, or until CDC and campus guidelines show that we can safely unmask. If you are feeling sick, please do not attend class. You may watch the class later via class capture.
  • You deserve to be able to learn in a way that works for you. If you think you need an accommodation for a disability or learning difference, please let me know as soon as possible. Some aspects of this course may be modified to facilitate your participation and progress. You will need to create documentation with the Office of the Dean of Students. I will treat any information about your disability with the utmost discretion.

Commitment to Respect

This course will touch on challenging topics, including mental and physical illness, discrimination, trauma, drug use, and privacy. We must build our class community into a place where everyone is entirely comfortable in participating, questioning, and intellectually experimenting without fear of retribution or overly harsh, judgmental, or critical responses. To this end, your continued participation in this course requires your commitment to challenge ideas rather than people and to treat any personal information shared in the class as entirely confidential. You will be provided with opportunities to participate in myriad ways, but you are expected to participate.

Academic Integrity

Cheating is wrong, and I think we can all agree to that. The less acknowledged truth is that it’s not even worth it. Cheating cheapens the value of your work and everyone else’s, and a single violation can literally ruin your entire academic and professional career. Please remind yourself of the Bates College policy on academic integrity and its definitions of plagiarism, use/misuse of sources, and cheating. Your work will be closely scrutinized for plagiarism, and violations of the College policy will not be tolerated. If you are concerned that your collaboration might put you at risk of an academic integrity violation, please see me during office hours as soon as possible. In my experience, violations of academic integrity are acts of desperation. If you are ever feeling desperate enough that a few extra points in this course seem to be worth risking so much, please consider talking to someone first — that could be me, a friend, or even someone at CAPS. I want you to succeed and am happy to talk to you if you feel undue pressure from this course or anything else.

ChatGPT and other AI tools are fascinating to play with. However, it is important to use these tools ethically and responsibly. Plagiarizing the work of others, including the work of ChatGPT and other AI tools, is a violation of academic integrity and will not be tolerated. Essays will be subjected to AI-detection software.

Grading:

Grading philosophy

No single assignment listed below is worth more than 10% of your final grade. This is intentional. This allows anyone to bounce back from a less-than-optimal score on any assignment. If you approach this course with consistent effort, you will succeed!  

Debate reactions: 30% total

During the course of the semester, we will have three in-class debates. You will be randomly assigned to argue one of the two viewpoints. You will write three debate reactions this semester that synthesize the debate, outline the most compelling arguments on each side, and establish a “winner” in your opinion. Each reaction paper is worth 10% of your final grade. If you are not satisfied with your grade, you will have the opportunity to revise each paper to earn back 50% of your lost points. For example, if your original paper earns a 60, you may earn up to half of the lost points (20) in revision to bring your grade up to an 80. Revisions must be turned in within one week of the paper’s return.

  • Prospects for prediction (due: February 7)
  • Predicting future memory impairments (due: March 16)
  • Making a better brain (due: April 7)

Participation: 40% total

What you get out of this class is in direct proportion to what you put in. Thoughtful participation is critical. That said, we all have different personalities and strengths, and in-class speaking is only one way to participate. Your participation grade will come from your engagement in several venues. Excellence in one can make up for sparse participation in another:

  • Class attendance and active, thoughtful contributions to discussion
  • Leading class discussions (expectation: lead one class this semester)
  • Reading annotation (expectation: contribute at least one question or point of discussion)

We will be using Perusall to facilitate social reading annotations. In each reading, you may highlight passages and figures for comment or question, follow up on the comments and questions or your colleagues, and use “upvoting” to endorse questions and comments. This has several advantages over traditional reading:

  • It provides you with a richer experience because each reading becomes a conversation.
  • It allows you to get your questions answered by me or a colleague before class.
  • It allows me to get a sense of what the class is thinking ahead of time.

The expectation for this portion of your grade is meaningful contribution to each session’s readings. Your reading annotations are due at midnight on the night before each class meeting.

Final Project: 30% total

The goal of the final project is to give you the opportunity to explore one of the course’s topics in depth, and to express this learning in a manner that is congruent with your background, goals, and talents. The project consists of two parts: a 3-minute “lightning” talk that will be given in the last week of class, and a written piece. The written component can take the form of a traditional research paper (4000-5000 words), or it could be an interdisciplinary piece (examples: a screen play or novella in which characters grapple with a neuroethics-related issue; proposed legislation on a neuroethics-related issue; a game in which players decide the best outcomes, etc.). The grade for the final project will be distributed as:

  • 5% Project proposal (Due: March 3)
  • 8% Project rubric (Due: March 30)
  • 8% Lightning talk (Given April 11 and April 13)
  • 9% Final written product (Due: April 13)

Your final percentage score will be assigned a letter grade on the following scale:

Grade Percentage Grade Percentage
A+ >95% B- 77-79%
A 90-94% C+ 74-76%
A- 87-89% C 70-73%
B+ 84-86% D 50-72%
B 80-83% F <50

Reading:

All required papers will be available on this website and Perusall, and should be done before class.

Policies:

Late work:

For all of our deadlines, if you turn in a component late, you will lose 10% of the total score per day. For example, the maximum possible percentage for a paper turned in one day late is 90. This policy does not apply to a documented personal or family emergency.

Emergencies:

If I must cancel class due to weather or an emergency, I will inform you via the class email list. Please consider your Bates email to be the default place to look for class-related information and get into the habit of checking it daily.

Electronics:

Please silence your cell phone upon entering class, and be mindful of your use of technology in class. Although I encourage you to use technology to respond to polls, look up reference materials, and make use your Perusall notes for course discussions, please limit your in-class online activity to these venues. Off-topic online browsing not only hurts your own learning, but is associated with lower learning for those around you.

Course Calendar

Unit 1: Neuroscience and the Law


January 12: Course introduction and introduction to neuroscience and the law


January 17: Neuroscience, moral agency, responsibility, and the law

January 24: Is the adolescent brain less culpable for its actions?

January 26: Brains on trial

January 31: No class: MRG away


February 2: Debate: When are your thoughts your own?

  • Imagine that 20-25 years in the future, we can “read” the thoughts of other people. Consider the cases we covered in class that juxtapose personal liberty and privacy with public interest and safety. How should these values be balanced? At what point (if any) should “thought privacy” not be absolute?

Unit 2: Prediction, Privacy, and Security


February 7: Minority Report: Can we predict future violent behavior?

February 9: Minority Report: Should we predict future violent behavior?

February 14: Brain-based lie detection

February 16: Do your thoughts have constitutional protection?

Unit 3: Neuroethics of Memory


February 21: No class: winter break


February 23: No class: winter break


February 28: Can we predict whether you have a memory?

March 2: Can traumatic memories be dampened, modified, or even erased?

March 7: Can we replace traumatic memories with new ones?

March 9: Debate Predicting future Alzheimer’s disease

Unit 4: Personhood, autonomy, and mental health

 

March 14: Using brain imaging to evaluate disorders of consciousness

March 16: Using brain imaging to predict suicidal ideation

Unit 4: Making better brains: enhancement


March 23: No class: spring break


March 28: Is it possible to be better than well?

March 30: Is it permissible to be better than well?

April 4: Debate Nootropics in the college environment

April 6: Next-generation enhancements

April 11: FINAL PRESENTATIONS


April 13: FINAL PRESENTATIONS

Final written product due