The Potential of Memory-Erasing Drugs

AJOB Neuroscience

The latest issue of AJOB Neuroscience features two target articles:

Propranolol and the Prevention of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Is it Wrong to Erase the "Sting" of Bad Memories?
by Michael Henry, Jennifer R. Fishman, Stuart J. Youngner

Functional Neuroimaging and the Law: Trends and Directions for Future Scholarship
by Stacey A. Tovino

As always, each target article is accompanied by a group of peer commentaries. This month's issue also features two editorials: "Rethinking Neuroethics in the Light of the Extended Mind Thesis" by Neil Levy and "Not Forgetting Forgetting" by Judy Illes. The full text of the latter is available for free. Here's a snip:

In the context of law and justice, conversation about the potential of memory-erasing drugs or devices to interrupt the cycle of criminal activity often perpetuated by those who are themselves abused is yet untapped (Coxe and Holmes 2005; Weiler and Widom 2001). If interfering with memory could intervene with the anger, revenge, and hopelessness experienced by people who are abused - sufferers of a bona fide form of post-traumatic stress disorder in its own right - the impact on the way in which society views and enacts criminal punishment could be profound. The prison population in the United States alone has quadrupled to two million inmates since 1980 - an unprecedented explosion that is creating unprecedented costs. Surely, the personal and societal cost of rehabilitation and reintegration over incarceration of these individuals, especially children and adolescents, would be reduced. Difficult questions would need to be answered: What would a maintenance schedule for intervention look like? What would be the long-term effects, especially on the still-plastic young brain? What support systems would be needed and how they would be financed? Neuroimaging could be combined to predict behavior or recidivism but, as Stacey Tovino's (2007) target article suggests, how that could be achieved with acceptable accuracy and without coercion or stigma is an open question. Nevertheless, in asking the question of gain or loss, I would still wager gain. At the very least, new research will tell us about possible practical, tangible gain, even in the face enduring moral uncertainties.

Source: http://blog.bioethics.net/2007/09/september-2007-ajob-neuroscience/

 

"I Am a One Hundred Percent American"

Menckenmania
A birthday party for the writer reveals his strange place in the world of letters.
By Jesse Smith

"I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them." – H.L. Mencken

This weekend, like they do every year around H.L. Mencken's September 12 birthday, about one hundred Mencken fans descend on Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library to pay tribute to the man famous for his scathing attacks on religion, creationism, the middle class, politicians, countryfolk, and a host of other targets he blamed for the ruination of America.

[...] 

Once rolling, Hamilton discussed Mencken's influence on New York's cultural life as a critic and later as editor of The Smart Set. Unlike the hundreds of thousands that later fled Baltimore, Mencken never left his hometown. But through the magazine based in the more influential and culturally rich New York, he launched the careers of Fitzgerald and O'Neil, and helped Americans discover Conrad and Joyce. His writing developed an almost rabid following of fans that hung on his every word. Harold Ross named Mencken's Smart Set as a model for Ross' New Yorker; the latter, coincidentally, even moved into the offices of the former at 25 West 45th St. in Manhattan.

But Mencken's influence on New York is largely forgotten. That's okay — he likely wouldn't care less. Mencken was often out of place in New York, his short sleeves, hair part, and use of awkward words like "flapdoodle" setting him apart from the city's sophisticates.

What's instead more interesting is that he's also increasingly forgotten on the literary landscape. The 1967 Norton Anthology of American Literature, for example, contains excerpts from Mencken's Prejudices, the second and third series, as well as from The American Language. The newest Norton Anthology contains nothing by the writer.

So while The Sun Also Rises and As I Lay Dying remain on bookshelves, Mencken is relegated to the lede of middling columns in middling American newspapers by middling writers who want to take a stab at biting satire....

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article09190704.aspx

Who else was going to show us in our dumbness?

....At the end of his essay on Dreiser, Mencken manages to pull out of himself what I take to be his finest single thought, as beautifully expressed as it ever has been, by anyone. Summing Dreiser up one last time, Mencken writes: “His moving impulse is no flabby yearning to teach, to expound, to make simple; it is that ‘obscure inner necessity’ of which Conrad tells us, the irrepressible creative passion of a genuine artist, standing spell-bound before the impenetrable enigma that is life, enamored by the strange beauty that plays over its sordidness, challenged to a wondering and half-terrified sort of representation of what passes understanding.”

Ironically, with that one sentence, Mencken redeemed American literature (at least for a minute or two) and realized something of the promise that Emerson and Whitman had gestured to with such profound, irrational hope. But with Mencken, there is no glorious tale to tell, just the desire that someone express the crappy truth as the only glory we’re likely to grasp....

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article09190702.aspx

Beware the Wild Card

....In the realm of grand strategy and politics, however, it is the sucker punch unleashed outside your peripheral vision that often lands with the most bone-crunching impact. Such strategic blows have the power to shatter carefully crafted political narratives and game plans, and to make a mockery of Washington's conventional wisdom. In the White House, the phenomenon is talked about often enough that it has been given a name: "game changer."

Certainly, tactical surprises are nothing extraordinary, and sometimes administrations even manufacture them to break a negative cycle of news or to stop a plunge in the polls. President Bush's recent and unexpected application of the Vietnam analogy to Iraq and the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a day after the GOP defeat in last year's midterm elections were viewed by the White House as just such useful communications "circuit breakers."

Truly strategic surprises are beyond manipulation, however, and they are outside the control of even the most powerful leaders on earth. Recall John F. Kennedy riding the razor's edge of the Cuban missile crisis, or Lyndon B. Johnson in the terrible thrall of the Tet offensive in Vietnam. Think of Richard Nixon undone by a Watergate burglary, Gerald Ford consumed by the seizure of the Mayaguez, or Jimmy Carter buffeted by the maelstrom created by an angry mob of Iranian students. Consider Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal, George H.W. Bush and the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Bill Clinton fighting off impeachment in the midst of the Kosovo war. Remember George W. Bush on September 12, 2001. Game changed.

What is so extraordinary about this political season is just how many storms are brewing around the world, any number of which could plausibly grow into Category 5 game changers. That's largely the price of a protracted war that is deeply unpopular both at home and abroad. Historically, wars are game changers in their own right, and Iraq has shown the pernicious tendency to exacerbate or ignite other crises, as evidenced by an increasingly unstable Middle East and an escalating confrontation between the United States and Iran. Similarly, the fate of the American intervention in Afghanistan and the fight against Al Qaeda are closely tied to the deteriorating situation in neighboring Pakistan.

"In my career, I can't remember a time when there were so many crises simultaneously affecting U.S. national security interests, so there's no doubt that this is an unusual period and that we're being tested," said a senior administration official, speaking on background. Like Europe was for much of the 20th century, the Middle East is increasingly becoming the epicenter of the security tremors rocking the United States, this official said. "In addition to Iraq, we have to contend with this alliance between Iran and extremist groups throughout the region that affects the stability of Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, and Afghanistan. And that's before we even talk about the challenge of managing the rise of China and India, dealing with a difficult Russia, coping with a crisis in Darfur, and taking on Hugo Chavez in an ideological argument about the best political future for Latin America. So this is an extraordinarily complicated time for our country."....

Source: "Game Changers" 

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2007/0907nj1.htm

Networks, Bacteria, and the Illusion of Control

Another great post from Brainsturbator worth reading in full. Some excerpts:

 

....Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking “superorganisms,” highly complex conglomerations of human cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses....

 

....One study concluded that children who grew up on farms had fewer allergies than their counterparts in urban areas. Conversely, health studies have shown that mothers who kept their children in antiseptic environments were actually compromising their health. Children need to be exposed to the natural environment of threats and benefactors so their immune systems learn to distinguish between the two.

...scientists have determined that 90 percent of the cells in the human body are bacterial. Only five percent of the cells in your body constitute “you,” in the sense of your genetic heritage. In relative scale, bacteria are much smaller than your own cells, so they account for only a small fraction of your body weight. Nearly all of these microbes are located in your gut, where they keep you working at optimal health....

 “We would have to accept that bacteria, touted to be our enemies, are not merely neutral or friendly but that they are us. They are direct ancestors of our most sensitive body parts. Our culture’s terminology about bacteria is that of warfare: they are germs to be destroyed and forever vanquished, bacterial enemies make toxins that poison us. We load our soaps with antibacterials that kill on contact, stomach ulcers are now agreed to be caused by bacterial infection. Even if some admit the existence of “good” bacteria in soil or probiotic food like yogurt few of us tolerate the dangerous notion that human sperm tails and sensitive cells of nasal passages lined with waving cilia, are former bacteria. If this dangerous idea becomes widespread it follows that we humans must agree that even before our evolution as animals we have hated and tried to kill our own ancestors. Again, we have seen the enemy, indeed, and, as usual, it is us. Social interactions of sensitive bacteria, then, not God, made us who were are today.”

http://www.brainsturbator.com/site/comments/networks_bacteria_and_the_illusion_of_control/

The Forensics of Sha Na Na

Not remotely important, but the weirdness might make you smile.

Just learned that one of the world’s leading figures in forensic linguistics, a guy who has helped train investigators from the FBI, the NYPD, the Secret Service, and the ATF, a Fulbright Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa member, now a Hofstra professor of linguistics and Swahili…

… was also one of the founders of the rock group Sha Na Na.

So whatever it is you’re doing in life, if you’d rather switch gears, it just might be possible.

http://thismodernworld.com/3970

Bizzare Homeland Security Quest

The Weird Russian Mind-Control Research Behind a DHS Contract

MOSCOW -- The future of U.S. anti-terrorism technology could lie near the end of a Moscow subway line in a circular dungeon-like room with a single door and no windows. Here, at the Psychotechnology Research Institute, human subjects submit to experiments aimed at manipulating their subconscious minds.

Elena Rusalkina, the silver-haired woman who runs the institute, gestured to the center of the claustrophobic room, where what looked like a dentist's chair sits in front of a glowing computer monitor. "We've had volunteers, a lot of them," she said, the thick concrete walls muffling the noise from the college campus outside. "We worked out a program with (a psychiatric facility) to study criminals. There's no way to falsify the results. There's no subjectivism."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has gone to many strange places in its search for ways to identify terrorists before they attack, but perhaps none stranger than this lab on the outskirts of Russia's capital. The institute has for years served as the center of an obscure field of human behavior study -- dubbed psychoecology -- that traces it roots back to Soviet-era mind control research....

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/09/mind_reading

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/14864

Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Child Rape Photos

Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2006-10-23 20:54.

By Greg Mitchell, http://www.editorandpublisher.com

NEW YORK A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic."

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that releasing the photos would hinder his work against terrorism. "When we continue to pick at the wound and show the pictures over and over again it just creates the image--a false image--like this is the sort of stuff that is happening anew, and it's not," Abizaid said.

The judge said, however, that "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

An ACLU release this afternoon said it was getting 70 photos and three video tapes. It also said that the government is being given 20 days to appeal.

What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe." They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.

A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of "rape and murder." Rumsfeld then commented, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

The photos were among thousands turned over by the key "whistleblower" in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking.

“Today's historic ruling is a step toward ensuring that our government's leaders are held accountable for the abuse and torture that happened on their watch,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The American public has a right to know what happened in American detention centers, and how our leaders let it occur."

One Pentagon lawyer has argued that they should not be released because they would only add to the humiliation of the prisoners. But the ACLU has said the faces of the victims can easily be "redacted."

To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.

This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:

"U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed Friday that videos and 'a lot more pictures' exist of the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.

"'If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse,' Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.'

"The embattled defense secretary fielded sharp and skeptical questions from lawmakers as he testified about the growing prisoner abuse scandal. A military report about that abuse describes detainees being threatened, sodomized with a chemical light and forced into sexually humiliating poses.

"Charges have been brought against seven service members, and investigations into events at the prison continue.

"Military investigators have looked into -- or are continuing to investigate -- 35 cases of alleged abuse or deaths of prisoners in detention facilities in the Central Command theater, according to Army Secretary Les Brownlee. Two of those cases were deemed homicides, he said.

"'The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.'

"A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a 'male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.'

"Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.'"

The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other.

In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men ... . The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

Judge Hellerstein said today that publication of the photographs will help to answer questions not only about the unlawful conduct of American soldiers, but about “the command structure that failed to exercise discipline over the troops, and the persons in that command structure whose failures in exercising supervision may make them culpable along with the soldiers who were court-martialed for perpetrating the wrongs.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell (letters@editorandpublisher.com)