Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The military has set their sights on neurotechnology for some time—DARPA
has been “dabbling” in neuroscience research since the early 1990s (Hoag 2003).
While many of the potential applications discussed may be over-hyped today, there
is no reason to think that persistent research will not bring at least some to fruition.
Research typically takes longer to implement and assimilate than initially antici-
pated, and there is a real danger of complacency when the negative impacts are not
immediately apparent (Brooks 1983). What may be exaggerated fears today may be
too real tomorrow.
Most military interest in neuroscience can be grouped into two categories:
performance enhancement and performance degradation (Royal Society 2012).
Neuroscience for performance enhancement includes pharmaceutical and other
measures for improving the cognitive capabilities, alertness, endurance, and com-
munication of warfighters, as well as less exotic applications such as better train-
ing and rehabilitation of soldiers (National Research Council 2009). Neuroscience
for performance degradation includes various types of nonlethal weapons that can
impair the cognitive functioning of adversaries on the battlefield. In addition to these
enhancement and de-enhancement applications, neuroscience can also be used for
interrogating and interviewing both enemy and friendly actors for their veracity and
intentions (Tennison and Moreno 2012). All of these actual or potential military uses
of neuroscience, in many (but at least theoretically not all) cases directed to pursue
legitimate and appropriate national security objectives, could have widespread appli-
cations in the civilian sector, many with dubious ethical or consequential impacts.
THE REVERSE DUAL-USE PROBLEM APPLIED
TO MILITARY NEUROSCIENCE
From a national security perspective, there are many longer-term applications of
neuroscience that may be justified (National Research Council 2009). Such advance-
ments will be compelled, again from purely a military perspective, by a need to
maintain military superiority, perform operations more effectively and safely, and
be able to anticipate and counter potential offensive applications by adversaries.
Of course, such applications should be developed in an ethical manner, including
appropriate human subject protections, but the point is that the benefits of these
applications to the military might clearly outweigh the risks. Yet, when these same
technologies are evaluated in a broader context that includes the impacts of spillover
into the civilian sector, the overall cost-benefit balance may shift into the negative.
Several military applications of neuroscience, still primarily in the R&D stage,
provide possible examples of this reverse dual-use dilemma. The first is remote brain
scanning. National security agencies are attempting to develop remote brain scanning
technologies that involve focusing some form of optical or other beam on a person's
head that is capable of detecting veracity, anxiety, or malevolence (Silberman 2006).
Such a technology, if viable, could be used to “interrogate” individuals without their
consent or even knowledge. If remote brain scanning is going to become a reality, the
most likely candidate is near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS measures changes
in blood flow in the brain and is based on the fact that the transmission and absorp-
tion of near-infrared light provides information about change in oxygenation levels
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