tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/phrenology-4427/articlesPhrenology – The Conversation2024-02-07T17:30:26Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224582024-02-07T17:30:26Z2024-02-07T17:30:26ZThe brain is the most complicated object in the universe. This is the story of scientists’ quest to decode it – and read people’s minds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573721/original/file-20240206-26-8guoy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=299%2C119%2C3586%2C2874&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">HuthLab researchers (l-r) Alex Huth, Shailee Jain and Jerry Tang behind an fMRI scanner in the University of Texas's Biomedical Imaging Center.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cns.utexas.edu/news/podcast/brain-activity-decoder-can-reveal-stories-peoples-minds">Nolan Zunk/UT Austin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of 2023, a <a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2023/05/01/brain-activity-decoder-can-reveal-stories-in-peoples-minds/">study</a> conducted by the HuthLab at the University of Texas sent shockwaves through the realms of neuroscience and technology. For the first time, the thoughts and impressions of people unable to communicate with the outside world were translated into continuous natural language, using a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and brain imaging technology.</p>
<p>This is the closest science has yet come to reading someone’s mind. While advances in neuroimaging over the past two decades have enabled non-responsive and minimally conscious patients to control a computer cursor with their brain, HuthLab’s research is a significant step closer towards accessing people’s actual thoughts. As Alexander Huth, the neuroscientist who co-led the research, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/science/ai-speech-language.html">told the New York Times</a>:</p>
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<p>This isn’t just a language stimulus. We’re getting at meaning – something about the idea of what’s happening. And the fact that’s possible is very exciting.</p>
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<p>Combining AI and brain-scanning technology, the team created a non-invasive brain decoder capable of <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.29.509744v1">reconstructing continuous natural language</a> among people otherwise unable to communicate with the outside world. The development of such technology – and the parallel development of <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2516-1091/ac23e6/meta">brain-controlled motor prosthetics</a> that enable paralysed patients to achieve some renewed mobility – holds tremendous prospects for people suffering from neurological diseases including <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/locked-syndrome#:%7E:text=Locked%2Din%20syndrome%20is%20a,communicate%20with%20blinking%20eye%20movements">locked-in syndrome</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/quadriplegia">quadriplegia</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Report on HuthLab’s ‘mind reading’ research by CBS Austin.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In the longer term, this could lead to wider public applications such as fitbit-style <a href="https://insider.fitt.co/a-50k-fitbit-for-your-brain/">health monitors for the brain</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-94544-6_4">brain-controlled smartphones</a>. On January 29, Elon Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752098683024220632">announced</a> that his Neuralink tech startup had implanted a chip in a human brain for the first time. He had previously told followers that Neuralink’s first product, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752118131579867417">Telepathy</a>, would one day allow people to control their phones or computers “just by thinking”.</p>
<p>But alongside such technological developments come major <a href="https://theconversation.com/mri-scans-and-ai-technology-really-could-read-what-were-thinking-the-implications-are-terrifying-205503">ethical and legal concerns</a>. It’s not only privacy but the <a href="https://theconversation.com/freedom-of-thought-is-being-threatened-by-states-big-tech-and-even-ourselves-heres-what-we-can-do-to-protect-it-220266">very identity of people</a> that may be at risk. As we enter this new era of so-called <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2408019-mind-reading-ai-can-translate-brainwaves-into-written-text/#:%7E:text=Using%20only%20a%20sensor%2Dfilled,person's%20thoughts%20into%20written%20words.">mind-reading technology</a>, we will also need to consider how to prevent its potential to help people being outweighed by its potential to do harm.</p>
<h2>Humanity’s greatest mapping challenge</h2>
<p>The brain is the <a href="https://today.uconn.edu/2018/03/complicated-object-universe/">most complicated object in the universe</a>. It contains more than 89 billion neurons, each connected to around 7,000 other neurons that send between ten and 100 signals every second. The development of AI was based on the brain and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-will-soon-become-impossible-for-humans-to-comprehend-the-story-of-neural-networks-tells-us-why-199456">concept of neurons working together</a>. Now, the way AI works with deep learning is helping us understand much more clearly how the brain works.</p>
<p>By fully mapping the structure and function of a healthy human brain, we can determine with great precision what goes awry in diseases of the brain and mind. In 2009, <a href="https://humanconnectome.org/">the Human Connectome Project</a> was launched by the US National Institute of Health with the goal of building a map of the structure and function of a healthy human brain. Similar initiatives were launched in Europe in 2013 (<a href="http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/">the Human Brain Project</a>) and China in 2016 (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627316308005?via%3Dihub">the China Brain Project</a>).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Human Connectome video by BrainFacts.org.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This daunting endeavour may still take generations to complete – but the scientific ambition of mapping and reading people’s brains dates back more than two centuries. With the world having been circumnavigated many times over, Antarctica discovered and much of the planet charted, humanity was ready for a new (and even more complicated) mapping challenge – the human brain.</p>
<p>These efforts began in earnest in the late 18th century with the development of a systematic framework for scientists to ask how the brain and its regions produce psychological experiences – our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. One of the earliest attempts was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology">phrenology</a>, pioneered by the Austrian physician and anatomist Franz Joseph Gall.</p>
<p>While this long-discredited science may now be best known for the <a href="https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/online-exhibits/explore-the-artifacts/phrenology-bust-1850/">decorative busts</a> sold in flea markets, it was all the rage by the early 19th century. Gall and his assistant Johann Spurzheim suggested that the brain was organised along 35 psychological functions, each linked to a different underlying region.</p>
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<p><em>Across the world, we’re seeing unprecedented levels of mental illness at all ages, from children to the very old – with huge costs to families, communities and economies. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/tackling-the-mental-health-crisis-147216?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=ArticleTop&utm_campaign=MentalHealthSeries">In this series</a>, we investigate what’s causing this crisis, and report on the latest research to improve people’s mental health at all stages of life.</em></p>
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<p>Just as you might start lifting dumbbells if you want larger biceps, phrenology argued that the more you use a particular psychological function, the more the brain region underlying it should grow – leading to a corresponding lump in your skull. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1445-2197.2005.03426.x">According to Gall and Spurzheim</a>, some of these functions (including memory, love of offspring and the instinct to kill) were shared with animals, whereas others (such as wit, poetic ability and morality) were uniquely human.</p>
<p>Throughout the British empire and later in the US, phrenology was used to justify classism, colonialism, slavery and white supremacy. Queen Victoria had readings done on her children, but Napoleon Bonaparte was not a fan. When Gall moved to Paris in 1807 to perform much of his phrenological theorising, France’s emperor pronounced: “It is an ingenious fable which might seduce the <em>gens du monde</em>, but could not stand the scrutiny of the anatomist.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old shop window with a large phrenology sign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572529/original/file-20240131-15-j86pu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A phrenology shop in New Orleans in 1936.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phrenology_Shop_in_New_Orleans_1936_by_Peter_Sekaer.jpg">Peter Sekaer/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>In the 1860s, “locationist” views of how the brain worked made a comeback – though the scientists leading this research were keen to distinguish their theories from phrenology. French anatomist Paul Broca discovered a region of the left hemisphere responsible for producing speech – thanks in part to his patient, Louis Victor Leborgne, who at age 30 <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/literally-psyched/the-man-who-couldnt-speakand-how-he-revolutionized-psychology/">lost the ability to say anything</a> other than the syllable “tan”. Today, <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_655">Patient Tan</a> remains one of psychology’s most famous case studies, and <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/brocas_area_is_the_brains_scriptwriter_shaping_speech_study_finds">Broca’s area</a>, in the frontal cortex, is one of the most important language regions of the brain, playing a critical part in putting our thoughts into words.</p>
<p>Similarly, German neuroanatomist Korbinian Brodmann’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/461884a#:%7E:text=Korbinian%20Brodmann's%20Localisation%20in%20the,cell%20type%20and%20laminar%20structure.">map of 52 distinct regions of the cerebral cortex</a>, first published in 1909, is still an important tool of contemporary neuroscience – and today’s neuroscientists continue to ask <a href="https://psu.pb.unizin.org/psych425/chapter/locationist-and-one-network-views-of-emotions-in-the-brain/">some of the same questions</a> as these pioneers: are our thoughts, feelings and behaviour produced by the collective action of the brain, or specific brain regions?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of different areas of the brain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572528/original/file-20240131-15-6poatr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Brodmann’s brain map.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brodmann_areas.jpg">Vysha/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>In modern neuroscience studies, hi-tech scanning tools such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow researchers to map the brain by measuring changes in local blood flow that are linked to changes in local neural activity. This approach depends on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/51/3/310/309681?redirectedFrom=fulltext">the findings</a> of American physiologist John Fulton almost a century ago. Fulton was treating Walter K, a 26-year-old sailor suffering from headaches and vision failure. When using his eyes after leaving a dark room, the patient sensed a noise in the back of his head, located over the visual cortex. This stronger pulse of activity was not replicated by other sensory inputs, for example when smelling tobacco or vanilla.</p>
<p>Over the remainder of the 20th century, this first observation of the link between local cerebral blood flow and brain function was built on by neuroscientists including American <a href="https://dm5migu4zj3pb.cloudfront.net/manuscripts/101000/101994/JCI48101994.pdf">Seymour Kety</a> and Swedish collaborators <a href="https://karger.com/ced/article-pdf/11/1/71/2335730/000047614.pdf">David Ingvar</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24955823">Neils Lassen</a>. Their pioneering work paved the way for modern brain mapping, led by the ground-breaking work of <a href="https://www.braingate.org/about-braingate/">BrainGate</a> – a multidisciplinary research unit originating in the neuroscience department at Brown University in the US state of Rhode Island.</p>
<h2>The first clinical trial</h2>
<p>Prototype brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) record and decode a patient’s brain activity, translating it into actions that can be carried out by a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8979628/">neural cursor, prosthetic limb or powered exoskeleton</a>. The ultimate goal is wireless, non-invasive devices that help patients communicate and move with precision in the real world. AI is critical to this goal, and is <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(21)00096-6#secst0015">already being used to help BCI systems</a> produce finely controlled, rapid <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2552/abfaaa/meta">motor movements</a>.</p>
<p>In 2004, <a href="https://www.braingate.org/about-braingate/">BrainGate</a> began the first clinical trial using BCIs to enable patients with impaired motor systems (including spinal cord injuries, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32809731/#:%7E:text=Brainstem%20infarction%20is%20an%20area,provide%20precise%20diagnosis%20and%20management.">brainstem infarctions</a>, locked-in syndrome and muscular dystrophy) control a computer cursor with their thoughts.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.patientcareonline.com/view/paralyzed-man-thinks-robotic-devices-motion">Patient MN</a>, a quadriplegic since being stabbed in the neck in 2001, was the trial’s first patient. After neuroscientist Leigh Hochberg’s team implanted electrodes over the hand-arm region of the patient’s primary motor cortex, they <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04970">reported</a> that Patient MN was able to open emails, draw figures using a paint program, and operate a television using a cursor. In addition, brain activity was linked to the patient’s prosthetic hand and robotic arm, enabling rudimentary actions including grasping and transporting an object. What’s more, these tasks could be done while the patient was having a conversation, suggesting they did not even demand the full concentration of the patient.</p>
<p>Other quadriplegic patients subsequently used BCI devices connected to multi-joint robotic arms to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11076">pick up and drink from a cup</a> – and in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1545968314554624">2015</a>, a patient with locked-in syndrome was shown operating a point-and-click keyboard five years after the device’s implantation. Advanced decoding algorithms saw their cursor control <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3953">improve</a> such that patients went from typing <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aac7328">24 characters per minute</a> in 2015 to <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/18554">39 characters per minute</a> two years later.</p>
<p>Also in 2017, BrainGate clinical trials reported the first evidence that BCIs could be used to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673617306013?via%3Dihub">help patients regain movement</a> of their own limbs by bypassing the damaged portion of the spinal cord. One patient with a <a href="https://www.spinalinjury101.org/details/levels-of-injury">high-cervical</a> spinal cord injury was able to reach and grasp a cup eight years after sustaining his injury.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">BrainGate breakthrough video by Brown University.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Then in 2021, the Braingate team reported that quadriplegic patients were now using a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8218873/">wireless system in their own homes</a> to control a tablet computer – an important first step toward a future where BCI devices can help people move and communicate outside the confines of the hospital or laboratory. Furthermore, the researchers said they anticipate “significant advances and paradigm shifts in neural signal processing, decoding algorithms and control frameworks” in the quest to make such devices available to the wider public.</p>
<p>Beyond Braingate’s successes, another team led by American neurosurgeon Edward Chang <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06443-4">recently reported</a> using surgically implanted <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/39/22/4299.full.pdf">electrocorticogram</a> electrodes to create a “digital avatar” that could convey what a paralysed patient wants to say. With the help of AI, the BCI decoded muscle movements related to speech the patients were thinking in their minds (as opposed to decoding the actual semantic content).</p>
<p>Activity patterns emerging from the specific brain region that is critical for speech are the key focus for this type of BCI. One expert not involved in the research <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/23/paralysed-woman-able-to-speak-through-digital-avatar-for-first-time">told the Guardian</a>: “This is quite a jump from previous results. We’re at a tipping point.”</p>
<h2>A new era of ‘mind reading’ technology</h2>
<p>Brain activity has long been recorded by non-invasive imaging methods such as fMRI and electroencephalography (EEG). But having been primarily envisaged as a tool for diagnostics and monitoring, it is now also a core element of the latest neural communication and prosthetic devices.</p>
<p>A landmark moment came in 2012, when a team led by Canada-based neuroscientist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvUvY_JrUgA">Adrian Owen</a> used neuroimaging to establish a <a href="https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/75999517/Sorger_2012_Brain_computer_interfaces_for_communcication_with.pdf">line of communication</a> with people suffering from <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/disorders-of-consciousness/">disorders of consciousness</a>. Despite being behaviourally non-responsive and minimally conscious, these patients were able to answer yes-or-no questions just by using their minds. For patients unable to communicate via facial or eye movements (methods that had been available to locked-in patients for many years), this was a very promising evolution.</p>
<p>Now, a decade on, the <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.29.509744v1.full">HuthLab research</a> at the University of Texas constitutes a paradigmatic shift in the evolution of communication-enabling neuroimaging systems.</p>
<p>In the study’s first stage, participants were placed in an fMRI scanner and their brain activity was recorded while they listened to 16 hours of podcasts (the model training dataset consisted of 82 five to 15-minute stories taken from the <a href="https://themoth.org/radio-hour">Moth Radio Hour</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/modern-love-podcast">Modern Love)</a>. This brain activity data was then linked to audio fragments the participants were listening to, in order to map what their brain activity patterns looked like when they had specific semantic content in their minds.</p>
<p>Next, the same participants were exposed to new audio fragments they had never heard before, or alternatively were asked to imagine a story. The decoder was then applied to this new set of brain activity data, to “reconstruct” the stories the participants had been listening to or imagining – with some <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.29.509744v1.full">striking results</a>. For instance, when a patient was played this audio:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t have my driver’s licence yet and I just jumped out right when I needed to, and she says: ‘Well, why don’t you come back to my house and I’ll give you a ride?’ I say OK.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>… the decoder reconstructed it as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She is not ready – she has not even started to learn to drive, yet I had to push her out of the car. I said: ‘We will take her home now’ and she agreed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While there were also a considerable number of mistakes over the entirety of the trial, the reconstruction of continuous language solely on the base of brain activity patterns, including some exact word matches, is arguably the closest we have yet come to truly reading someone’s thoughts.</p>
<p>Whereas the brain’s capacity to produce motor intentions is shared across species, the ability to produce and perceive language is uniquely human. Thus, decoding actual semantic content from brain activity in regions used in language perception (primarily the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11109/#:%7E:text=The%20association%20cortices%20include%20most,and%20the%20generation%20of%20behavior.">association</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499919/">prefrontal</a> regions of the brain’s cortex) seems more fundamental to what makes us human.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Columns of text comparing actual words with those decoded by the HuthLab brain technology" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572526/original/file-20240131-19-2rcmmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Semantic examples from the HuthLab study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UT Austin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also, the HuthLab study used non-invasive fMRI technology – a form of neuroimaging that measures oxygen levels of blood in the brain in order to make inferences on brain activity. The disadvantage of fMRI is that it can only take slow measurements of brain signals (typically, one brain volume every two or three seconds). The study overcame this by using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_artificial_intelligence">generative AI</a> language models (akin to ChatGPT) that predict the probability of word sequences, and thus what words are most likely to come next in someone’s thoughts.</p>
<p>The researchers also worked with patients watching silent short film clips. They demonstrated that the system could be used not only to decode semantic content entertained through auditive perception, but also through visual perception.</p>
<p>Importantly, they also explicitly addressed the potential threat to a person’s mental privacy posed by this kind of technology. Jerry Tang, one of the study’s lead researchers, <a href="https://cns.utexas.edu/news/podcast/brain-activity-decoder-can-reveal-stories-peoples-minds">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that. We want to make sure people only use these types of technologies when they want to and that it helps them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The very fact this semantic decoder has to be trained on each person separately, with their cooperation over a long period of time, constitutes a robust safeguard. In other words, one of the major hurdles in the development of language decoders – the fact they are not universally applicable – constitutes one of the strongest safeguards against privacy violations.</p>
<p>However, while there is no risk of a malevolent company being able to read the thoughts of a random person in the street any time soon, there are nonetheless important ethical, legal and data protection concerns that must be considered as this technology develops.</p>
<p>We have already seen the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html">consequences</a> of unfettered corporate access to personal data and online behaviour. Although we are a long way off from neural data being collected and processed at such scale, it is important to consider burgeoning ethical questions in the early stages of technological progress.</p>
<h2>The ethical implications are immense</h2>
<p>Losing the ability to communicate is a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17483107.2022.2146217">deep cut to one’s sense of self</a>. Restoring this ability gives the patient greater control over their lives and their ability to navigate the world – but it could also give other entities, such as corporations, researchers and other third parties, an uncomfortable degree of insight into, or even control over, the lives of patients.</p>
<p>Even other types of intimate biological data, such as that about our genomes or our biometrics, do not come as close to approximating our private inner lives as neural data. The ethical implications of providing access to such data to scientific and corporate entities are potentially immense.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Text of UN resolution 51/3" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572536/original/file-20240131-25-g07hqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UN resolution 51/3.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G22/525/01/PDF/G2252501.pdf?OpenElement">UNHRC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is reflected in <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2023/call-inputs-study-human-rights-council-advisory-committee-neurotechnology-and#:%7E:text=At%20its%20fifty%2Dfirst%20session,promotion%20and%20protection%20of%20all">Resolution 51/3</a> of the UN Human Rights Council, which commissioned a study on “the impact, opportunities and challenges of neurotechnology with regard to the promotion and protection of all human rights” in time for the council’s 57th session in September 2024. However, whether the introduction of novel human rights is warranted to address the challenges posed by neurotechnology remains a hotly debated issue among human rights experts and advocacy groups.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://neurorightsfoundation.org/mission">NeuroRights Foundation</a>, based at Columbia University in New York, argues that novel rights surrounding neurotechnologies will be needed for all humans to preserve their privacy, identity, and free will. The potential vulnerability of disabled patients makes this a particularly important problem. For example, Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that affects movement, is co-morbid with dementia, which affects the ability to reason and think clearly.</p>
<p>In line with this approach, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/neurotech-neurorights">Chile was the first country</a> that adopted legislation to address the risks inherent to neurotechnology. It not only <a href="https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/chile-pioneering-protection-neurorights">introduced a new constitutional right</a> to mental integrity, but is also in the process of adopting a bill that bans selling neurodata, and subjects all neurotech devices to be regulated as medical devices, even those intended for the general consumer. The proposed legislation recognises the intensely personal nature of neural data and considers it <a href="https://restofworld.org/2021/chile-neuro-rights/">akin to organ tissue</a> which cannot be bought or sold, only donated. But this legislation has also faced criticism, with legal scholars <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2589295921000059?casa_token=A9_9ASQthlMAAAAA:FXJiHZARnjPp6IjA7jHBqHzrHCAxoTY0s9um1nWWi9rE5so52ssahLBwwwkb5YTQGKR-sznGAg">questioning</a> the need for new rights and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12152-022-09504-z#Sec1">pointing out</a> that this regime could stifle beneficial BCI research for disabled patients.</p>
<p>While the legal action taken by Chile is the most impactful and far-reaching to date, <a href="https://spanish-presidency.consilium.europa.eu/en/news/leon-declaracion-european-neurotechnology-human-rights/">other countries</a> are considering following suit by updating existing laws to address the developments in neurotechnologies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ybUnmQ05vX4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chile’s pioneering neurotechnology regulation – report by Al Jazeera English.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the cornerstones of ethical research is the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430827/#:%7E:text=Introduction,undergo%20the%20procedure%20or%20intervention.">principle of informed consent</a>. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26497727/">Particular attention</a> must be paid to the capacity of paralysed patients and their family members to understand and consent to novel experimental therapies. Patients with a very limited ability to communicate may not be able to answer more extensive questions associated with the obtaining of informed consent, which is often more complex than a simple opt-in procedure. Also, not all potential risks and side-effects (both physical and mental) can be foreseen, making it difficult for physicians to adequately inform their patients.</p>
<p>At the same time, it is important <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-015-9712-7">to keep in mind</a> that denying treatment to a patient whose only hope may be communicating through BCI presents a significant opportunity cost, such as a lifetime without communication, that may be very well greater than the costs of participation in experimental treatments. The appropriate balance to strike for clinicians and researchers will be challenging to determine.</p>
<p>In a burgeoning new era of big (brain) data, longstanding ethical concerns about the hacking, leaking, unauthorised use or commercial exploitation of personal data will be amplified in the case of sensitive data on a person’s thoughts or movements (as controlled through neuroprosthetics). Paralysed patients may be particularly vulnerable to neurodata theft given their reliance on caregivers, and increasingly, the BCI technologies themselves, to communicate and move around the world. Care must be taken to ensure that information disclosed by a BCI represents a patient’s true and consensual thoughts.</p>
<p>And while it is likely that the first advances in neurotech will be therapeutic in nature, such as for disabled and neurodivergent patients, future advances are likely to involve consumer applications such as <a href="https://bci.games/">entertainment</a>, as well as for <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-computer-interfaces-could-allow-soldiers-to-control-weapons-with-their-thoughts-and-turn-off-their-fear-but-the-ethics-of-neurotechnology-lags-behind-the-science-194017#:%7E:text=For%20example%2C%20a%20soldier%20in,more%20rapid%20response%20to%20threats.">military and security</a> purposes. The growing availability of neurotechnology in a commercial context that is generally subject to far less regulation only amplifies these ethical and legal concerns.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/freedom-of-thought-is-being-threatened-by-states-big-tech-and-even-ourselves-heres-what-we-can-do-to-protect-it-220266">Freedom of thought is being threatened by states, big tech and even ourselves. Here’s what we can do to protect it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Data protection laws should be assessed on their ability to account for the new risks arising from increasing access to and collection of neurodata by organisations and entities of different types. Take the example – for the time being completely hypothetical – of using BCI to infer the thoughts of suspects in police interrogations.</p>
<p>One might say that BCI cannot be used in police interrogations as the error rate of misinterpreting a person’s neural data is currently unacceptably high, although accuracy could improve in the future. Or, one might say that BCI should never be used to “read” a person’s brain without their consent, regardless of the technology’s accuracy. Or, one might say that using BCI for interrogations is justified under certain extreme circumstances, such as when crucial information is needed to save someone’s life, and the suspect is refusing to cooperate.</p>
<p>Different people, societies, and cultures will disagree on where to draw the line. We are at an early stage of technological development and as we begin to uncover the great potential of BCI, both for therapeutic applications and beyond, the need to consider these ethical questions and their implications for legal action becomes more pressing.</p>
<h2>Decoding our neuro future</h2>
<p>This is a groundbreaking moment in our quest to understand the inner workings of our brains and minds. In the past year alone, neuroscientists have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5">reversed spinal disabilities</a>, translated MRI data into text to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01304-%209.epdf">understand what someone is thinking</a>, and begun to <a href="https://twitter.com/neuralink/status/1661857379460468736?cxt=HHwWgMDSoeqejZAuAAAA">conduct clinical trials</a> to help people interact with objects using thoughts alone, something already seen in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcz-Hq1NP98">trials with monkeys</a> two years ago. Such developments could all lead to transformative impacts on people’s lives.</p>
<p>At the same time, it’s important to note that research such as the HuthLab study uses a very small sample, and that the training process for its semantic decoder is complex, time-consuming and expensive. Add to this the fact that fMRI, although non-invasive, is a non-wearable neuro-imaging technique, and it is clear these methods are not set to leave a strictly organised laboratory setting any time soon.</p>
<p>However, the HuthLab researchers <a href="https://cns.utexas.edu/news/podcast/brain-activity-decoder-can-reveal-stories-peoples-minds">suggest</a> that in time, fMRI could be replaced by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNRIS) which, by “measuring where there’s more or less blood flow in the brain at different points in time”, could give similar results to fMRI using a wearable device.</p>
<p>Certainly, the <a href="https://www.neurotech.com/investment-digest">exponential global investment</a> in the development of neurotechnologies such as this, by governments and private actors alike, shows that the world is eager to create accessible BCIs that are suited to function as medical devices, but also as commercial consumer goods. By the middle of 2021, the total investment in neurotechnology companies amounted to just over US$33 billion (around £26 billion).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M-slagG1OKE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Neuralink’s first human brain implant – report by Sky News.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most high-profile companies is Musk’s <a href="https://neuralink.com/">Neuralink</a>. “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” Musk tweeted on January 29, of his neurotech startup’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/30/1227850900/elon-musk-neuralink-implant-clinical-trial">first implanted chip in a human brain</a>. The implant is said to include 1,024 electrodes, yet is only slightly larger than the diameter of a red blood cell. <a href="https://twitter.com/neuralink/status/1716973591684653555">According to Neuralink</a>: “Its small size allows threads to be inserted with minimal damage to the [brain] cortex.”</p>
<p>While this wireless implant is currently being developed as a medical device, aiming at enhancing the quality of life for patients suffering from various neurological diseases (Neuralink’s clinical trial has enlisted people aged 22 and above living with quadriplegia), Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752119586470949056">stated on X-Twitter</a> that the ultimate aim is to create a device that “enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking”.</p>
<p>Indeed, commercial neuro-imaging devices are already on the market. The <a href="https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/journal-of-biomedical-optics/volume-27/issue-07/074710/Kernel-Flow--a-high-channel-count-scalable-time-domain/10.1117/1.JBO.27.7.074710.full?webSyncID=cc96715c-8678-b272-ce9d-a31d41322dc9&sessionGUID=467762ac-1ce5-a61d-96e9-9042d3bc6d99&_ga=2.177093349.1194737154.1696754253-1060044912.1696754253&cm_mc_uid=86756417056816967542535&cm_mc_sid_50300000=84585101696754253521&SSO=1">Kernel Flow</a>, for example, is a commercially available, wearable headset that uses fNRIS technology to monitor brain activity. Another prominent player in commercial neuro-imaging, Emotiv, has developed <a href="https://www.emotiv.com/?campaignid=17057185126&adgroupid=138768698289&network=g&device=c&utm_term=emotiv%20eeg&utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_content=644974459432&utm_campaign=Brand&hsa_acc=5401365090&hsa_cam=17057185126&hsa_grp=138768698289&hsa_ad=644974459432&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-343485221404&hsa_kw=emotiv%20eeg&hsa_mt=p&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp9Pf4GC78tnxQw2h90QpHzibYCJenjkzWEsTArqRrXxCWkfdVmK1VkaAjeREALw_wcB">earpods incorporating EEG technology</a> that are able to monitor brain activity for signs of focus, attention and stress – with the stated ambition of boosting the wearer’s productivity at work.</p>
<p>While the era of big data has enabled increasingly personalised and complex approximations of people’s inner lives through our biometrics, genetics and online presence, nothing has been so powerful as to capture the inner workings of our minds – yet.</p>
<p>But as HuthLab’s research suggests, and Musk’s pronouncements claim, this may now not be so very far away. The dawn of a new era of brain-computer interfaces should be treated with great care and great respect – in acknowledgement of its immense potential to both help, and harm, our future generations.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Sheir received funding from the EPSRC (grant number EP/V026518/1). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timo Istace receives funding from Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas J. Kelley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Elon Musk’s Neuralink begins inserting chips into human brains, we trace the history of ‘mind reading’ technology and assess the potential risks and rewardsNicholas J. Kelley, Assistant Professor in Social Psychology, University of SouthamptonStephanie Sheir, Research Associate, Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub, University of BristolTimo Istace, PhD Researcher in Neurotechnology and the Law, University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882912018-01-22T14:10:04Z2018-01-22T14:10:04ZNeuroscientists put the dubious theory of ‘phrenology’ through rigorous testing for the first time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202557/original/file-20180119-80206-py8n9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 1883 phrenology chart.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nobody <em>really</em> believes that the shape of our heads are a window into our personalities anymore. This idea, known as “phrenology”, was developed by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796 and was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-shape-of-your-head-and-the-shape-of-your-mind/282578/">hugely popular</a> in the 19th century. Today it is often remembered for its dark history – being misused in its later days to back <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/feb/05/django-unchained-racist-science-phrenology">racist</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zGs7-w974CQC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">sexist stereoptypes</a>, and its links with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism">Nazi “eugenics”</a>. </p>
<p>But despite the fact that it has fallen into disrepute, phrenology as a science has never really been subjected to rigorous, neuroscientific testing. That is, until now. </p>
<p>Researchers at the University of Oxford have hacked their own brain scanning software to explore – for the first time – whether there truly is any correspondence between the bumps and contours of your head and aspects of your personality. The results have <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/05/243089">recently been published</a> in an open science archive, but have also been submitted to the journal Cortex.</p>
<p>But why did phrenologists think that bumps on your head might be so informative? Their enigmatic claims were based around a <a href="https://archive.org/details/systemofphrenolo00combuoft">few general principles</a>.
Phrenologists believed the brain was comprised of separate “organs” responsible for different aspects of the mind, such as for self-esteem, cautiousness and benevolence. </p>
<p>They also thought of the brain like a muscle – the more you used a particular organ the more it would grow in size (hypertrophy), and less used faculties would shrink. The skull would then mould to accommodate these peaks and troughs in the brain’s surface – providing an indirect reflection of the brain, and thus, the dominant features of an person’s character.</p>
<p>Despite its initial popularity, phrenology started losing support from scientists in the 20th century due to methodological criticisms and failure to replicate various findings. Gall was restricted in the cases he used to define the location of bump-trait correspondences – often he studied just a few people, such as his family and friends. Other times, he relied on dubious and somewhat offensive stereotypes. His method was also questionable: probing subjects’ heads with his fingertips until he began to “detect patterns”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202800/original/file-20180122-46213-synurv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Caricature showing Franz Joseph Gall measuring the head of a bald lady.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">E.F. Lambert/Wellcome collection</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While there was some renewed interest in the theory in the 20th century due to the rise of disciplines like evolution, criminology and anthropology, it soon was almost <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3OWU1wnOy84C&pg=PA36&dq=aristotle+brain&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vYwzUrjaJubQ2wWZnoDACQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aristotle%20brain&f=false">completely abandoned</a>.</p>
<h2>Large sample</h2>
<p>This year, however, in the spirit of scientific fun, <a href="https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/divisions/fmrib">my colleagues</a> decided to put this old theory to the test. They did so by repurposing various pieces of sophisticated software, originally designed for MRI brain analysis. Where normally these tools carefully discard all bits of skull, allowing analysis of the brain alone, they engineered them to do the reverse: relegating all of the brain to the trash, instead keeping the bony bits for analysis.</p>
<p>From this surface structure, they could create a detailed map of the contours – bumps – of individual skulls. By taking advantage of the largest freely available <a href="http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/">brain imaging database</a> in the UK, the scientists acquired a massive sample of data from almost 6,000 people. Alongside brain data, this database also contains a wealth of information from demographic and lifestyle questionnaires, as well as language and cognitive tests from its participants.</p>
<p>The scientists picked 23 measures from this data that best corresponded with the <a href="http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n01/frenolog/frenmap.htm">27 personality factors</a> from phrenology. Some map very closely, such as phrenology’s “eventuality” (aptness to receive an education) and the modern version: “age completed full time education”. Similarly, “tune” (sense for sounds, musical talent) in phrenology matched with “musical profession”. </p>
<p>Before they started linking these personality traits with skull features, they looked at overlapping traits (so if you have one trait you also tend to have another) and found some rather amusing associations. For instance, they found a very strong positive association between the trait “amativeness” (the arousal of feelings of sexual desire) and “words”. To break this down, it turns out that the more sexual partners a person has had, the higher their verbal fluency in a word naming task.</p>
<h2>The verdict</h2>
<p>What they didn’t find, however, were any “statistically significant or meaningful effects” when it came to the skull. That means they were unable to find <em>any</em> correlation between the contours of the skull and the 23 personality traits, selected to mirror those championed by phrenology.</p>
<p>What’s more, undermining a deeper fundamental premise, they demonstrated there was no correspondence between the curvature of the brain and the contours of the skull.
That is, there is no way lumpy bits of brain are pushing the skull out to create surface bumps – the skull does not mirror the brain surface.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202801/original/file-20180122-46240-8gdofi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research based on MRI images usually exclude the skull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is obviously unsurprising, given the shaky “science” upon which phrenology was based. That said, it was among one of the earlier disciplines to recognise that different parts of the brain <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-modular-brain-pieces-the-world-together-58990">have different functions</a>. Sadly, the phrenologists didn’t quite nail what the actual functions were: focusing largely on the brain as the seat of the mind (governing attitudes, predispositions etc) rather than the more fundamental functions we know it to control today: motor, language, cognition, perception and so forth. However, for better or worse, phrenology is largely considered as a scientific game-changer – with the roots of many modern scientific, but also psuedoscientific disciplines, following in its wake.</p>
<p>All in all, it appears – as the researchers themselves state – that the “digital” technology of the time (feeling the scalp with “digits” aka fingers) was no match for the digital MRI technology of the current day. An infamous historical discipline finally investigated, and a topnotch science pun: pretty successful day at the office for the Oxford team.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88291/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Dempsey-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Victorians believed that the shape and size of the skull could reveal details about a person’s demeanour. Now it’s been put to the test.Harriet Dempsey-Jones, Postdoctoral Researcher in Cognitive Neurosciences, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846372017-10-03T15:04:04Z2017-10-03T15:04:04ZFaces reveal a lot – but the science needs to be interpreted with care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188150/original/file-20170929-13542-25985g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/159375611?src=6LheiUU3EVGakrpLzoDqZg-1-3&size=medium_jpg">B.erne/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What’s in a face? If we are to believe research conducted over the last decade or so, the answer is: a lot. And according to a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1070-x">recent study</a>, facial dimensions can even reveal a person’s sex drive. While men had a higher sex drive than women, in both sexes it was people with relatively wider faces that had this higher sex drive. </p>
<p>On its own, this finding seems surprising at best and crazy at worst – how could the shape of someone’s face possibly have anything to do with their libido? When viewed in the context of other studies, however, it starts becoming clearer that there may be some logic and truth to it. In fact, unlike the classic 19th-century approach of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology">phrenology</a>, the detailed study of head-shape to infer character, the study of facial appearance is largely (albeit not always) driven by careful consideration of biology and evolutionary theory. </p>
<p>Take <a href="https://osf.io/zn79k/">another recent study</a> where an artificial intelligence program correctly identified people as gay or straight – 81% of the time for men and 74% of the time for women – based on an analysis of their face. The study also found that, on average, gay men had more feminine facial features than straight men, while lesbian women had more masculine features than straight women. For the purpose of understanding what’s in a face, the finding that gay and lesbian faces have less sex-typical features is interesting because it aligns with one <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.02024.x/full">current model</a> that suggests the development of sexual orientation is the result of hormone exposure in the womb. </p>
<p>Hormones probably also play a critical role in the first study about sex drive; wider faces (relative to height) have been linked to higher levels of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lars_Penke/publication/257492195_Telling_Facial_Metrics_Facial_Width_Is_Associated_with_Testosterone_Levels_in_Men/links/02e7e526fa7796d7d1000000.pdf">testosterone</a>. Testosterone, in turn, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/91/7/2509/2656285/The-Relationship-between-Libido-and-Testosterone">influences sex drive</a>. In fact, facial width has been associated with other testosterone-linked characteristics, such as dominance and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cheryl_Mccormick/publication/26747406_Facial_Structure_Is_a_Reliable_Cue_of_Aggressive_Behavior/links/00b7d5230acba58567000000.pdf">aggression</a>. Together, these studies provide a clear picture that testosterone drives both behaviour and facial appearance. </p>
<p>Facial cues to behaviour are also automatically picked up by most people. Just think of the last time you met someone and thought he or she looked trustworthy, friendly or aggressive. It is very likely that other people would agree with your assessment; many studies show that people highly agree when it comes to gleaning personality or behavioural traits from faces. For example, in line with the wide-face-dominance association mentioned above, earlier <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56c77251f8baf3ae17ce0a75/t/56d722609f7266eea24c0603/1456939624844/Lefevre+%26+Lewis+2014+%28EJP%29+Perceiving+aggression+from+facial+structure.pdf">studies</a> have found that people tend to associate wide faces with dominant behaviour. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188149/original/file-20170929-19819-1gk80dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Does Wayne Rooney’s wide face tell us anything about his character?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/323514836?src=xLL7C6n0x0JW8YQeQ14MKQ-1-2&size=medium_jpg">Mitch Gunn/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Overgeneralising</h2>
<p>Our knack for perceiving characteristics from people’s faces is perhaps where phrenology comes back into play. People agree with each other about the characteristics that are presented in a face, but we oversimplify this task, ending up with overgeneralisations or even false perceptions. For example, there is excellent agreement between people about what makes a face look <a href="http://haxbylab.dartmouth.edu/publications/TPO09.pdf">trustworthy or untrustworthy</a>, but there seems to be no truth in these perceptions – it doesn’t actually mean that person is or isn’t trustworthy. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/rule/pubs/2013/Rule_etal(2013-JPSP).pdf">study</a> conducted by Nick Rule and others found that in the lab, as well as the real world, people seen as untrustworthy were, as a group, no less trustworthy than those seen as highly trustworthy. In the lab, students were encouraged to cheat on a test and there was no difference in perceptions of trustworthiness from facial photographs of those students who did cheat and those who did not. Similarly, when shown pictures of military criminals and war heroes, observers did not rate trustworthiness any differently. </p>
<p>From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense for us to <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/43564460/Natural_selection_and_the_regulation_of_20160309-7906-3i5buz.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1507038541&Signature=vvfOwwd9yqL3jJq0FOAwmvu7ORg%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DNatural_selection_and_the_regulation_of.pdf">overgeneralise</a>, especially when it comes to negative traits. It is safer to overestimate someone’s aggressiveness than to get beaten up when we don’t expect it. But that means we must be careful not to rely on first impressions too much. </p>
<p>Thinking back to the sex-drive study, while there is a link between facial width and sex drive, it would be wrong to conclude that every person with a wide face is a sex maniac. The association is present when looking across a large group of people, but is better thought of as a tendency rather than a fact present in each individual. Or put differently, if you take 100 people with wide faces and 100 people with narrow faces, the average sex drive in the wide-face group is likely higher, but there will also be people in the narrow-face group whose sex drive is very high or people in the wide-face group whose sex drive is very low.</p>
<p>On balance, studies on facial appearance are telling and well conducted, although there are certainly some that stretch the interpretation so the usual rule of thumb that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is applies. We can tell a lot from faces including health, character and, yes, even sexual orientation. But while these characteristics are correctly gleaned at group level, we need to be careful not to make assumptions about individuals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carmen Lefevre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>…just don’t call it the new phrenology.Carmen Lefevre, User Researcher and Senior research associate, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/608692016-06-22T15:33:00Z2016-06-22T15:33:00ZIs psychology really in crisis?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127300/original/image-20160620-8861-ifipj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I just can't seem to get my replication studies published.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=psychoanalysis&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=314294129">Photographee.eu/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern psychology is apparently in <a href="http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-016-0135-2">crisis</a>. This claim is nothing new. From phrenology to psychoanalysis, psychology has traditionally had an uneasy scientific status. Indeed, the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, viewed Freud’s theories as a typical example of pseudoscience because no test could ever show them to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability">false</a>. More recently, psychology has feasted on a banquet of extraordinary findings whose scientific credibility has also been questioned. </p>
<p>Some of these extraordinary findings include <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/100/3/407/">Daryl Bem’s experiments</a>, published in 2011, that seem to show future events influence the past. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell University, revealed that people are more likely to remember a list of words if they practise them <em>after</em> a recall test, compared with practising them before the test. In another study, he showed that people are significantly better than chance at selecting which of two curtains hide a pornographic image. </p>
<p>Then there’s Yale’s John Bargh who in 1996 <a href="http://www.yale.edu/acmelab/articles/bargh_chen_burrows_1996.pdf">reported</a> that, when unconsciously primed with an “elderly stereotype” (by unscrambling jumbled sentences containing words such as “Florida” and “bingo”), people subsequently walk more slowly. Add to this Roy Baumeister who in 1998 presented <a href="https://bama.ua.edu/%7Esprentic/672%20Muraven%20%26%20Baumeister%202000.pdf">evidence</a> suggesting we have a finite store of will-power which is sapped whenever we resist temptations such as eating chocolates. Or, in the same year, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1998-01060-003">Ap Dijksterhuis and Ad Van Knippenberg</a> showing that performance on Trivial Pursuit is better after people list typical characteristics of a professor rather than those of a football hooligan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127306/original/image-20160620-8867-ajehxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Does thinking about him really make you better at Trivial Pursuit?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=tN3OCDYxnajjaAjIbfrMCA&searchterm=professor&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=330576656">Dragon Images/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These studies are among the <a href="http://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/09/the-10-most-controversial-psychology.html">most controversial</a> in psychology. Not least because other researchers have had difficulty replicating the experiments. These types of studies raise concerns about the methods psychologists use, but also more broadly about psychology itself. </p>
<h2>Do not repeat</h2>
<p>A survey of 1,500 scientists published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox">Nature</a> last month indicated that 24% of them said they had published a successful replication and 13% published an unsuccessful replication. Contrast this with over a century of psychology publications, where just <a href="http://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/6/537">1%</a> of papers attempted to replicate past findings. </p>
<p><a href="https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2050-7283-1-2">Editors and reviewers</a> have been complicit in a systemic bias that has resulted in high-profile psychology journals becoming storehouses for the strange. Many psychologists are obsessed with the “impact factors” of journals (as are the journals) – and one way to increase impact is to publish curios. Certain high-impact journals have a reputation of publishing curios that never get replicated but which attract lots of attention for the author and journal. By contrast, confirming the findings of others through replication is unattractive, rare and relegated to less prestigious journals. </p>
<p>Despite psychology’s historical abandonment of replication, is the tide turning? This year, a crowd-sourced initiative – the <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716">OSC Reproducibility project</a> – attempted to replicate 100 published findings in psychology. The multinational collaborators replicated just over a third (36%) of the studies. Does this mean that psychological findings are unreliable? </p>
<p>Replication projects are selective, targeting studies that are cheaper and less technically complicated to replicate or those that are simply unbelievable. Other projects such as “<a href="http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-9335/a000178">Many Labs</a>” have reported a replication rate of 77%. All initiatives are non-random and headline replication rates reflect the studies that are sampled. Even if a random sample of studies were examined, we don’t know what would constitute an acceptable replication rate in psychology. This is not an issue specific to psychology. As John Ioannidis noted: “<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124">most published research findings are false”</a>“. After all, scientific hypotheses are our current best guesses about phenomena, not a simple accumulation of truths. </p>
<h2>Questionable research practices</h2>
<p>The frustration of many psychologists is palpable because it seems so easy to publish evidence consistent with almost any hypothesis. A likely cause of both unusual findings and non-replicability is psychologists indulging in questionable research practices (QRPs). </p>
<p>In 2012, a <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/MeasPrevalQuestTruthTelling.pdf">survey of 2,000 American psychologists</a> found that most indulged in QRPs. Some 67% admitted selectively reporting studies that "worked”, while 74% failed to report all measures they had used. The survey also found that 71% continued to collect data until a significant result was obtained and 54% reported unexpected findings as if they were expected. And 58% excluded data after analyses. Astonishingly, more than one-third admitted they had doubts about the integrity of their own research on at least one occasion and 1.7% admitted to having faked their data. </p>
<p>The problems associated with modern psychology are longstanding and cultural, with researchers, reviewers, editors, journals and news-media all prioritising and benefiting from the quest for novelty. This systemic bias, coupled with minimal agreement on fundamental principles in certain areas of psychology, means questionable research practices can flourish – consciously or unconsciously. Large-scale replication projects will not address the cultural problems and may even exacerbate them by presenting replication as something special that we use to target the unbelievable. Replication – whether judged as failed or successful – is a fundamental aspect of normal science and needs to be both more common and more valued by psychologists and psychology journals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Laws does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Only 1% of published psychology research papers are ever repeated. If psychologists want their discipline to be taken seriously, they’ll need to get their house in order.Keith Laws, Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology, University of HertfordshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/275182014-06-12T20:33:59Z2014-06-12T20:33:59ZNatural born killers: brain shape, behaviour and the history of phrenology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50808/original/tnqdc8tw-1402466207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phrenologists believed the shape of the brain offered a clear-cut explanation for behaviour.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hey__paul/6418553349">Hey Paul Studios/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Long before neuroscience, phrenology claimed to have the power to determine who was afflicted with badness and who was suffering from madness.</em></p>
<p><em>In the second-last article in our series <strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/biology-and-blame">Biology and Blame</a></strong>, James Bradley details some interesting facts about this pseudo-science.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>At 8am on Monday October 24, 1853, Patrick O’Connor and Henry Bradley were hanged together outside the Melbourne Gaol in front of a large crowd. </p>
<p>Bradley and O'Connor were responsible for one of the lesser known, but more spectacular outbreaks of bushranging in the early period of the Gold Rushes, and paid the ultimate penalty for their violent crimes.</p>
<p>Having murdered a man in cold blood, they piratically seized a boat in northern Tasmania, and crossed the Bass Strait, landing somewhere near <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Port">Western Port</a>. They then stole horses, held up travellers, and shot anyone who got in their way. </p>
<p>No one died, but that was through luck rather than judgement.</p>
<h2>A different judgement</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50811/original/n5w73bdh-1402467022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A phrenology chart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phrenologychart.png">Heida Maria via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the execution, medical men descended on the corpses. They paid particular attention to the malefactors’ skulls, and the following day’s <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/title/13">The Argus</a> explained how “cerebral physiology” had revealed that both were, in effect, natural born killers.</p>
<p>O’Connor’s skull revealed that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>even if blessed by the controlling influence of a most powerful intellect instead of a very weak one, this would still have been a violent, murderous man.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bradley’s case was worse:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here … we have a person with all the passions and appetites of full-grown man, and controlling intellect of an average child — in fact a criminal idiot.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The newspaper concluded that the “pirate bushrangers”, as they had become known, “had not powers of self-control.” They were, in fact, “not so much <em>criminals</em> as <em>state patients</em>.” </p>
<p>“Their destination should have been the asylum not the gallows.” </p>
<p>In other words, they should have been treated rather than punished.</p>
<h2>Phrenology’s heart</h2>
<p>“Cerebral physiology” was a euphemism for phrenology, a now-discredited pseudo-science. But make no mistake: in its day, phrenology was on the cutting edge of brain science. </p>
<p>During the first half of the 19th century, and arguably beyond, it offered a clear-cut explanation for why people behaved the way they did. And it was hailed by many as an extraordinarily effective explanatory tool. </p>
<p>Two ideas lay at the heart of phrenology’s seductive power. First, different areas of the brain were associated with different mental capacities or faculties. And, as the brain developed, it shaped the skull. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50810/original/55v8c7k8-1402466479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration and definition of ‘phrenology’ from Webster’s Dictionary circa 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/1895-Dictionary-Phrenolog.png">Quasipalm via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An underdeveloped faculty might result in a depression of the skull then, while an overdeveloped faculty would result in a bump or protuberance. </p>
<p>A skilled (usually medical) observer could detect either.</p>
<p>But what phrenology also offered was the potential to sort the wheat from the chaff — most phrenologists agreed that some criminals were born bad, while others were made bad by life circumstances.</p>
<h2>Some scepticism</h2>
<p>This was the position of the doyen of British phrenology, George Combe, who, in his <a href="http://www.historyofphrenology.org.uk/constindex.html">The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects</a> (1828), wrote that “certain individuals were unfortunate at birth”.</p>
<p>This line was reiterated by Scottish geologist George S. Mackenzie in 1836 when he petitioned the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Spurred by “recent atrocities that have occurred in New South Wales”, Mackenzie argued the selection of convicts to be transported to that colony was too haphazard. </p>
<p>Instead, their “individual history and characters should be inquired into”, and only the redeemable sent. And, of course, the best way to achieve this was by using phrenology, which would be “an engine of unlimited power” in shaping the reform of criminals.</p>
<p>Mackenzie’s petition was accompanied by a plethora of supporting testimonials provided by eminent scientists and medical men. </p>
<p>But the Secretary of State was unmoved by phrenology’s claims. And so too was the legal profession as a whole.</p>
<h2>Impact in the colonies</h2>
<p>Indeed, the legal profession would soon seek to <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychiatrys-fight-for-a-place-in-defining-criminal-responsibility-27514">purge the courts of the insanity plea</a> in favour of whether the criminal, sane or not, knew that he or she was committing a crime. </p>
<p>With this most phrenologists concurred: however underdeveloped a mental organ was, the criminal still possessed the ability to make a moral decision.</p>
<p>But just because phrenology failed to make an impact on the courts, doesn’t mean it had no impact upon penal policy in general. Alexander Maconochie, who, for a short time, was the progressive governor of the Norfolk Island penal colony, was deeply influenced by the discipline.</p>
<p>So too were the medical men who dissected the bodies of executed criminals. Like Bradley and O’Connor’s, dissections involved a minute examination of the internal structures of the brain, combined with a more general analysis of the bumps and depressions of the skull; all as part of the search to establish brain-based criminality.</p>
<p>Phrenology cast an extraordinarily long shadow over the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its public face may have become a tool for mesmerists and other quacks. But the project to locate criminal culpability in the brains and bodies of criminals continued apace.</p>
<h2>Criminal tattoos</h2>
<p>We see its inheritance in psychiatrist and anthropologist Cesare Lombroso’s 1876 <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Criminal_Man.html?id=yyRaEG-V_70C&redir_esc=y">L’Uomo Delinquente</a> (Criminal Man), although by now there was no talk of specific faculties or organs. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50819/original/3fbh3vkg-1402468509.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lombroso’s work was deeply influential.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanlositattoos/8248958735">ivan losi/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Lombroso, the criminal was the product of a vitiated nervous system. Both the brains and skulls of criminals demonstrated evidence of atavism; in other words, criminals were evolutionary throwbacks, no less, and their skulls and faces bore the signs of degeneration. </p>
<p>It was for this reason that Lombroso made tattoos a dominant symptom of the pathological criminal (the striking illustrations in L’Uomo Delinquente are an abundant resource for the historian of tattooing). Only a person with a degenerated brain and nervous system would be able to subject him or herself to the pain of the tattooist’s needle!</p>
<p>But this notion of the biologically hard-wired criminal was one view among many. To be sure, it was deeply influential, particularly within the emergent discourse of eugenics. But it also vied with other ideas.</p>
<p>The celebrated French criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne, for instance, had a different take to Lombroso on the matter of tattoos. For him, they were “speaking scars” that talked of the life and culture of the tattooed individual. In the same way, the criminal was made by social circumstances rather than biological inheritance.</p>
<h2>Echoes of the past</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50812/original/jcyhyw8k-1402467421.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neuro-culpability: the modern-day phrenology?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonolave/3565473585/in/photolist-6r4Z5v-sUk8Y-DWwGq-6SCgsW-7fhqq4-36fL9x-6SCgyS-DNJBS-mEuJm-5ab3s-7TyLXR-36fLaX-6Dht52-36fL7r-5cSyC-5cSzd-5cSzy-NtjN-DNJyY-5VnsDf-36koWS-ousHF-p17xW-4MwMCt-NtjP-4XUGF1-4MFAHb-4yuCEY-4MBprk-oyuYN-4NCiwq-92G4KQ-5byCf-5fbHci-36koXQ-36koYL-KvtyF-dz135E-5Vi6FV-h75wwe-e8anXe-5Vnsx3-3Td6p-5N63kr-czTdAU-5Nai9Q-5Naikq-7ebjQt-cKnD2-9mRza3">Jon Olav Eikenes/Flickr (resized)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However alien phrenology looks, and however much it appears to modern eyes as a pseudo-science, we would do well to remember that, like contemporary neuroscience, it was once believed to possess the power to determine who was afflicted with badness and who was suffering from madness.</p>
<p>Indeed, this gives us reason to exercise some scepticism about contemporary neuroscience’s claims. The eminent historian of forensic psychiatry Joel Eigen has noted that neuroscience is “the latest but not the final chapter” in the story of identifying the pathological criminal.</p>
<p>Phrenology, which once spoke so loudly about the human condition, has gone the way of all things. Is it possible that the same fate awaits our contemporary understanding of neuro-culpability? </p>
<p>It is not impossible that today’s neuroscience will end up looking like yesterday’s phrenology. And only time will reveal the next instalment of the fraught dialogue between criminology and biological determinism. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This is the sixth article in our series <strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/biology-and-blame">Biology and Blame</a></strong>. Click on the links below to read other pieces:</em></p>
<p><strong>Part one – <a href="https://theconversation.com/genes-made-me-do-it-genetics-responsibility-and-criminal-law-27395">Genes made me do it: genetics, responsibility and criminal law</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two – <a href="https://theconversation.com/irresponsible-brains-the-role-of-consciousness-in-guilt-27432">Irresponsible brains? The role of consciousness in guilt</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three - <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychiatrys-fight-for-a-place-in-defining-criminal-responsibility-27514">Psychiatry’s fight for a place in defining criminal responsibility</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four – <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-for-psychopaths-in-all-the-wrong-places-fmri-in-court-27591">Looking for psychopaths in all the wrong places: fMRI in court</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five - <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-shouldnt-addiction-be-a-defence-to-low-level-crime-27520">Why shouldn’t addiction be a defence to low-level crime?</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven - <a href="https://theconversation.com/put-down-the-smart-drugs-cognitive-enhancement-is-ethically-risky-business-27463">Put down the smart drugs – cognitive enhancement is ethically risky business</a></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Bradley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Long before neuroscience, phrenology claimed to have the power to determine who was afflicted with badness and who was suffering from madness. In the second-last article in our series Biology and Blame…James Bradley, Lecturer in History of Medicine/Life Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/273952014-06-04T20:34:27Z2014-06-04T20:34:27ZGenes made me do it: genetics, responsibility and criminal law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50173/original/dx5qy96n-1401847793.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Genetics is just the latest specialist knowledge threatening to take the question of criminal responsibility away from law and hand it over to science. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/photograham/630904128/in/photostream/">Graham/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Welcome to <strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/biology-and-blame">Biology and Blame</a></strong>, a series of articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility.</em></p>
<p><em>Today, Arlie Loughnan considers the challenge to the legal system posed by genetic science.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>It’s not much of an exaggeration to say we’re in the midst of a crisis in criminal responsibility. </p>
<p>Society is becoming more aware of what causes people to commit crime. The range of causes includes addiction, a history of sexual or physical abuse, and “rotten social backgrounds”, as they say in the United States. </p>
<p>How, then, under these conditions, can we still call people to account for their actions in court, on the basis they acted freely and voluntarily when they committed an offence? Do we have to throw away ideas of responsibility for crime?</p>
<h2>The heart of the law</h2>
<p>Criminal responsibility is the conceptual core of criminal laws: it allows us to hold a person accountable for his or her conduct, and justifies punishment if they’re convicted. </p>
<p>Criminal responsibility is different to criminal liability, which concerns the outcome of a trial. Rather, it relates to whether a person is properly recognised as a subject of the law, or put another way, whether it’s appropriate that he or she is held to the moral standard of behaviour criminal laws encode.</p>
<p>Our notion of criminal responsibility centres on a person’s mental state – what the accused knew, thought or perceived. We construct the defendant as an abstract, rational entity – made up of a set of capacities or exercising a set of choices – and abstracted from his or her social and political context. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50181/original/myfktjhv-1401849065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genetic science is threatening ideas about criminal responsibility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/edyson/38312588">Esther Dyson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This approach <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199698592.do">reflects the influence of psychology</a> on the historical development of the principles and practices of criminal law.</p>
<p>Now, genetic science – in this context, the influence of genes on human behaviour – is threatening or promising (depending on your perspective) to render criminal responsibility – and the ideas about blameworthiness or culpability at its heart – null and void. </p>
<p>Research suggests <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10519-011-9463-4">genetic as well as shared environmental influences</a> are important factors in persistent antisocial behaviour. On the face of it, such research appears incompatible with beliefs about individual choice on which criminal law rests.</p>
<p>Genetic science does indeed pose a challenge for criminal law. It’s not possible or desirable to ignore developments in scientific knowledge, for the legitimacy of criminal law practices if nothing else. But genetic science isn’t yet living up to its promise – or threat – to overwhelm current practices. </p>
<p>Evidence from the United States, where the effect of genetics on crime has been hotly debated, indicates <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1909958">limited use</a>. In particular, “gene evidence” appears to be brought into the courtroom by defence counsel, rather than prosecution, and to be <a href="http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(14)00441-3">used for mitigation at sentencing</a>, rather than at the point of conviction. </p>
<p>As this suggests, the impact of this evidence is modest, and it’s being integrated into existing criminal practices.</p>
<h2>A deeper understanding</h2>
<p>It should also be remembered that genetics is the latest in a long line of specialist scientific knowledges that have promised or threatened to take the question of criminal responsibility away from law and hand it over to science. </p>
<p>Neuroscience, with its ability to produce a picture of the living brain, and cognitive psychology, with its insights into higher mental processes, have also claimed some territory. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50178/original/gnwzy5h9-1401848590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whether a particular genetic disease or condition impacts responsibility for crime is an entirely separate issue to having the genes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/liebe_gaby/11614991503">Gabriela Ferreira/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=1517">And older ideas</a> drawn from eugenics (about the degeneracy of particular families and whole populations) and phrenology (famous for its focus on the size and shape of the heads of criminals), for instance, were once thought to have all the answers to the problem of crime.</p>
<p>What’s all too easily lost in this perennial debate about science and criminal responsibility is an appreciation that legal evaluation of responsibility for alleged criminal conduct is not merely a mechanical exercise. Ideas of causation are not the same in law as in science. </p>
<p>A particular configuration of genes (or, more accurately, the interaction of those genes and the environment) may cause a particular disease, for instance, but whether the disease impacts responsibility for crime is an entirely separate issue. </p>
<p>Criminal responsibility is about factors such as someone’s appreciation of wrongfulness of their behaviour rather than genetic predisposition or tendency. And appreciation of wrongfulness doesn’t readily reduce to the configuration of genes.</p>
<p>Assessing responsibility for crime is a moral-evaluative task, one in which lots of different types of evidence – scientific and non-scientific – is taken into account. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, where the individual faces a serious charge, this evaluation is undertaken by a jury of lay people whose role is precisely to weigh all the evidence – and apply their (not expert) knowledge in evaluating an individual. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This is the first article in our series <strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/biology-and-blame">Biology and Blame</a></strong>. Click on the links below to read other pieces:</em></p>
<p><strong>Part two – <a href="https://theconversation.com/irresponsible-brains-the-role-of-consciousness-in-guilt-27432">Irresponsible brains? The role of consciousness in guilt</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three - <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychiatrys-fight-for-a-place-in-defining-criminal-responsibility-27514">Psychiatry’s fight for a place in defining criminal responsibility</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four – <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-for-psychopaths-in-all-the-wrong-places-fmri-in-court-27591">Looking for psychopaths in all the wrong places: fMRI in court</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five - <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-shouldnt-addiction-be-a-defence-to-low-level-crime-27520">Why shouldn’t addiction be a defence to low-level crime?</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six – <a href="https://theconversation.com/natural-born-killers-brain-shape-behaviour-and-the-history-of-phrenology-27518">Natural born killers: brain shape, behaviour and the history of phrenology</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven - <a href="https://theconversation.com/put-down-the-smart-drugs-cognitive-enhancement-is-ethically-risky-business-27463">Put down the smart drugs – cognitive enhancement is ethically risky business</a></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Loughnan’s research on responsibility in criminal law is supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) (No. DE130100418).</span></em></p>Welcome to Biology and Blame, a series of articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility. Today, Arlie Loughnan considers the challenge to the legal system…Arlie Loughnan, Associate Professor in Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111962012-12-17T03:10:00Z2012-12-17T03:10:00ZExplainer: the brain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18544/original/npx579bm-1355191485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=264%2C107%2C3120%2C2263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Different parts of the brain do different things, but there's more overlap than you might think.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brain image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If I had been asked 15 years ago to write a short piece about what the different parts of the brain did, it would have been a fairly straightforward task. Not any more.</p>
<p>Over the last 15 years, the methods used to study the brain have advanced significantly, and with this so has our understanding. Which makes the task of explaining the most complex organ in the body, well, complex.</p>
<h2>Back to basics</h2>
<p>The structural anatomy of the brain is certainly well defined and the more basic of our functions have been generally well mapped. The “lower levels,” such as the brainstem, regulate functions such as heart rate, breathing, and maintaining consciousness. </p>
<p>And the cerebellum is critical for the control and regulation of movement. While it was thought that this was its sole function, more recently the cerebellum has also been shown to have a role in so-called “higher functions” such as cognition and emotion.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18620/original/h2rjbfps-1355357216.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The structural anatomy of the brain is fairly well-defined.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brain image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As we move to the “higher levels” of the brain, namely the cerebral cortex, where more complex functions come into play, the assignment of function to structure becomes decidedly less distinct.</p>
<h2>Different hemispheres</h2>
<p>The cortex is structurally divided into two hemispheres (left and right) each with four lobes (occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal).</p>
<p>Brain functions, such as visual perception, language, memory, spatial ability and problem solving, have been traditionally allocated to one such lobe and/or hemisphere of the brain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18622/original/mvgb48qx-1355357719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colour-coded lobes of the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brain diagram from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This has led to a number of misnomers regarding brain function, the most popular of which is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mondays-medical-myth-the-right-side-of-your-brain-controls-creativity-3951">commonly held belief</a> that there is a distinction between the left “logical” brain and the right “creative” brain. As discussed below, such complex behaviours are not determined by a specific brain region, or even a specific hemisphere.</p>
<p>The conceptualisation of an almost one-to-one relationship between structure and function was largely a result of <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/somurray/psych506/readings/lesion-methods.pdf">lesion studies</a>, where damage to a specific part of the brain resulted in impairments in a particular function. But as our techniques of assessing the brain became more sophisticated this approach was shown to be somewhat simplistic.</p>
<p>We have come a long way from the <a href="http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html">phrenology</a> of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/224182/Franz-Joseph-Gall">Franz Gall</a> in the 19th century, in which characteristics such as secretiveness, self-esteem and wonder were determined by the shape of the skull (thought to be a proxy of brain size), and the 20th century reliance on lesion studies to determine the function of the different areas of the brain.</p>
<h2>Connected network</h2>
<p>We are now developing an understanding that complex, higher-level brain functions are a result of a number of brain areas working together, in what are termed “networks”. </p>
<p>This has been a result of techniques such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging">Magnetic Resonance Imaging</a> (MRI), which allows us to look at the entirety of brain regions involved in certain functions, with newer applications allowing the visualisation of connections between these brain regions (i.e. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_MRI#Diffusion_tensor_imaging">Diffusion Tensor Imaging</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=175&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=175&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=175&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18486/original/9c4yd5kp-1355102944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simplified depiction of the models of relationship of brain structure to function based on phrenology, lesion studies and neuroscience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">kate Hoy.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is not to say that there is no separation of function throughout the brain. Rather, while there are brain regions that carry out specialised functions, they are now thought to do so in concert with other brain regions via network connections.</p>
<p>To conceptualise this, you could think of the brain as a exceptionally efficient rail network where certain train stations perform specialised duties but they do so in conjunction with other stations, and they are connected and “communicate” via the rail network.</p>
<p>Language can provide a good example of how this occurs in the brain. Language is often thought of as a solely “left brain” function and, while there is a degree of lateralisation, this is certainly not the whole story.</p>
<p>There are specific regions in the dominant (usually left) hemisphere that are integral in the production and comprehension of speech, i.e. <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/135877/Broca-area">Broca’s area</a> and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/639879/Wernicke-area">Wernicke’s area</a> respectively. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18737/original/tdpgbf79-1355705597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NIH publication 97-4257/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the non-dominant (usually right) hemisphere is also involved in language, and is thought to be important in the recognition and production of the emotional context of speech. </p>
<p>Additionally, the “language network” involves a number of other dominant “left” hemisphere regions, including <a href="http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/5/994.full">prefrontal cortex</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10796/">premotor cortex</a>, supplementary motor area, as well as regions of the <a href="http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/examining-the-brains-four-lobes-frontal-parietal-t.html">parietal and temporal lobes</a>.</p>
<p>These brain regions work together to perform higher order aspects of language such as the application of the correct syntax to speech, as well as the mapping of words to their meaning. </p>
<p>While there are certain highly-specialised brain regions for language, they are still part of an extensive network of brain regions which work together to produce this complex function.</p>
<p>In addition, the brain is not fixed in its functioning. It is plastic and, if needed due to illness or injury, it can recruit new regions and/or networks to take over the functions of the damaged areas. </p>
<p>And so we believe it is a complex interaction between structure and function that best describes what the different part of the brain do - at least for now …</p>
<p><br>
<em>See more <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/explainer">Explainer articles</a> on The Conversation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Hoy receives funding from the NHMRC and Beyond Blue.</span></em></p>If I had been asked 15 years ago to write a short piece about what the different parts of the brain did, it would have been a fairly straightforward task. Not any more. Over the last 15 years, the methods…Kate Hoy, Research Fellow / Clinical Neuropsychologist, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.