Neuroscience in Everyday Life: The Ethical Challenges

Neuroscience is increasingly being applied in everyday life, from the courtroom to the classroom to the battlefield and to the marketplace. Brain imaging technologies, as well as methods of changing brains, present new ethical challenges and require us to re-think our understanding of ourselves.

Dr. Martha Farah is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of Penn’s Center for Neuroscience and Society. 

Her current research focuses on the effects of childhood poverty on brain development, and ethical issues emerging from advances in the neuroscience of cognition and emotion. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and six books, including her recent Neuroethics: An Introduction with Readings, published by MIT Press.