The Goals and Promise of Neuroscience

The Scientific Goals of Neuroscience

• Understanding how the components of the nervous system work
• Understanding how neural circuits and systems work
• Understanding how bodies and nervous systems work together to generate behavior
• Understanding how animals interact with their natural environments to survive and reproduce
• Predicting behavior

The Medical Promise

• Curing crippling neurological diseases, for example
  • Parkinson's Disease
  • Stroke
  • Epilepsy
  • Alzheimer's disease and other dementias
• Repair and replace injured neural tissue
• Create interfaces between the nervous system and prosthetic devices such as arms, hands, or legs.
• Create and control direct brain/machine interfaces.

The Engineering Challenge

• Creating computing devices that
  • Use low power
  • Do massive computations in parallel
  • Can process information over multiple temporal and spatial scales
  • Can "re-program" themselves based on experience
  • Can heal themselves if damaged
  • Can wire themselves up on their own
• Creating artificial devices that
  • Can function autonomously
  • Can interact in the world as well as animals currently do
  • Are capable of social interactions and communication
  • Can use language
  • Are conscious of themselves

Ethical Issues

The study of neuroscience raises many important ethical issues, which need to be debated and resolved by society at large, not just by scientists. Here are a few such questions:

• Understanding mechanisms of learning could lead to technologies that could enhance learning and intelligence; should these be used, and if so, under what conditions?
• Learning how to control the brain could lead to the ability to exert undue influence over the behavior and beliefs of others; should such technology ever be developed, and if it is developed, how could it be properly regulated?
• Creating autonomous robots that are used for military purposes could lead to serious consequences for civilian society; how should such technology be regulated?
• Should we attempt to create autonomous, conscious, intelligent machines that might ultimately replace us?