Our ability to infer mental states from fMRI scans is still rudimentary, but the time may be approaching when neuroimaging can be used to indicate witnesses’ reliability in court proceedings.
Because regulatory approval of cognitive enhancement drugs is likely, physicians may want to consider whether they would condone the practice for restoration of function only or for enhancement purposes as well.
New brain imaging suggests that asking patients to put themselves in their surrogates’ shoes when thinking about advance directives might lead to directives that better line up with what surrogates think they should decide.
While it is important to make parents of severely neurologically damaged newborns aware of the difficulty in predicting their child’s survival chances or future disabilities, it is also crucial to inform them of the statistical evidence about outcomes for their child’s condition.