Post 4 - Summary on two articles

In this post, I will be summarizing the two articles, "Ethics and mapping the brain" and "A computer that can 'read' your mind", available from the IVLE. These two articles are about using the computer to read human's mind and the ethics issues involved.

First of all, the first article, "A computer that can 'read' your mind", is about using a computer to read what a human is thinking about. A computational modeling used to read a human's mind had already been developed. This modeling is further improved by the researchers. The improved modeling can predict what the brain activation patterns even if the computer did not have the FMRI data for that specific noun in advance. The accuracy is also better. When someone thinks of an apple, an apple besides being represented in brain areas responsible for tasting, smelling, chewing, it also triggers memories of the last time the person ate an apple, or initiate thoughts about how to obtain an apple. The computational modeling can be used to identify thoughts and in the study of disorders and diseases.
The five relevant vocabulary or phases are:
1. Neural - involving a nerve or the nervous system that include the brain.
2. Semantic - the study of meaning in language
3. Insight - (the ability to have) a clear, deep understanding of a complicated problem or situation
4. Intrigued - to interest someone a lot by being strange, unusual or mysterious
5. Neuroscience - the field of study encompassing the various scientific disciplines dealing with the structure, development, function, chemistry, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system.
After reading this article, I have a better knowledge of fMRI. However, I find that this article is not very useful because it does not include some of the ethnic issues involved.

Next, the second article, "Ethics and mapping the brain", is about the ethic issues involved in using the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) to read human's mind. Although this new technology can help to cure diseases, not everyone welcomes such technology. This new technology made use of the relationship between the brain activity and behavior patterns which can reveal the content of a person's memory, predict mental disorders or giftedness, and whether a person is lying. Standards should be set to ensure the proper use of this new technology such as seeking consent of others. However, if the consent of people was seeked, then the criminal may refuse such scan which might in turn affect jury. Another issue is about privacy because people are able to gain access to data obtained from the brain, so the privacy of others may get intruded. Next issue is whether it should be used on children. The predictions from brain imaging will get more and more reliable, so the main issues are who will be tested, why they will be tested and how the results will be used.
The five relevant vocabulary or phases are:
1. Alzheimer's disease - a common form of dementia of unknown cause, usually beginning in late middle age, characterized by memory lapses, confusion, emotional instability, and progressive loss of mental ability
2. Correlations - mutual relation of two or more things, often one in which one of them causes or influences the other.
3. Genomics - The study of all of the nucleotide sequences, including structural genes, regulatory sequences, and noncoding DNA segments, in the chromosomes of an organism
4. Envision - imagine or expect as a likely or desirable possibility in the future
5. Reductionist - Simplify a complex problem
After reading this article, I find that it is a very useful piece of article because it not only explains what is fMRI, it also includes some of the ethnic issues involved.

The APA citation is used in both articles which are in the format:
Surname, Initial of given name, year and date of publication, title, date of access, website, URL.

Sources of the meaning of the vocabulary or phases are from Cambridge International Dictionary of English and www.dictionary.com