Kent Allard
03-31-2010, 04:50 PM
BBC News
Magnets 'can modify our morality'
How complex is our sense of morality?
Scientists have shown they can change people's moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses. They identified a region of the brain just above and behind the right ear which appears to control morality. And by using magnetic pulses to block cell activity they impaired volunteers' notion of right and wrong. The small Massachusetts Institute of Technology study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing
Lead researcher Dr Liane Young said: "You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing."
The key area of the brain is a knot of nerve cells known as the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ).
Magnets 'can modify our morality'
How complex is our sense of morality?
Scientists have shown they can change people's moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses. They identified a region of the brain just above and behind the right ear which appears to control morality. And by using magnetic pulses to block cell activity they impaired volunteers' notion of right and wrong. The small Massachusetts Institute of Technology study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing
Lead researcher Dr Liane Young said: "You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing."
The key area of the brain is a knot of nerve cells known as the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ).