Neuroscience
Neuroscience is a rapidly expanding field which offers significant potential to understand and intervene in the workings of the human brain. It includes new techniques in brain imaging, making it possible to scan or modify brain activity while the subject engages in specified tasks.
Classical neurophysiology is now linked to the molecular and genetic sciences, opening up new possibilities in the prediction and potential treatment of brain disease using 'smart drugs'. New information technologies are expanding to deal with the mass of neuroscience data. The miniaturisation of components could see the use of internal prosthetics to manage brain function. Research on the use of stem cells to manage neurological disease or repair brain damage is also accelerating.
Questions raised
Significant questions are raised by this science.
- How might genes and environment interact in determining brain function and illness?
- What are the implications of neuroscience applications affecting cognitive processing, human memory, learning, performance, and judgement?
- What are the issues around security, surveillance and military applications: the 'neuroscience of social control'?
- And, what are the legal, ethical and political questions?
Papers on neuroscience
The briefing paper 'Future directions in neuroscience: A twenty year timescale' was prepared for the Navigator Network by Steven P R Rose, Professor Emeritus, Open University; Visiting Professor, University College London.
It was presented at “Unfolding the Mind: prospects and perils in neuroscience”, a national symposium held in Auckland New Zealand 9 March 2007.
Future directions in neuroscience: A twenty year timescale - Steven Rose, Professor Emeritus, Open University; Visiting Professor, University College London.
Commentaries on the briefing
Brains, people and politics: Future directions in neuroscience - Rosemary Du Plessis, School of Sociology and Anthyropology, University of Canterbury
A biomedical perspective on the next twenty years - Gary D Housley, Professor of Physiology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
A psychiatric perspective on the next twenty years - Peter R Joyce, Dean and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Otago, Christchurch
Legal implications for New Zealand - Steven Price, Adjunct lecturer, Victoria University School of Law, Wellington
Neuroscience and ethics - Martin Wilkinson, University of Auckland