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Brain 2005 128(8):1741-1742; doi:10.1093/brain/awh593
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© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Editorial

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Ever since Ronald Reagan declared the 1990s to be the Decade of the Brain, society has had high expectations of neuroscience. Superficially, this is an agenda for solving big problems; inter alia, the nature of consciousness (Brain 2004; 127: 2558–63), cures for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and brain repair. But the relationship between neuroscience and society goes deeper. If behaviour in the individual is just robotic brain function, are we simply the slaves of ion flux across cell membranes and chemical activity at synapses; or is there free-will? Is it appropriate for society to seek retribution and compensation when individual behaviour is aberrant, and the product of a deranged brain or mind? To what extent might . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Alastair Compston

Cambridge, UK


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