Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
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Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#2tldr;
“It’s not wrong to say there are weird ethical implications to this,” Finn says, “but we’re still a long way from doing this with enough accuracy to apply in the real world.” Neuroscience will be waiting for its sorting hat for a while yet.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#3tldr; “It’s not wrong to say there are weird ethical implications to this,” Finn says, “but we’re still a long way from doing this with enough accuracy to apply in the real world.” Neuroscience will be waiting for its sorting hat for a while yet.
'"In this study, the researchers predicted how well people would do on a cognitive test by analyzing fMRI scans of 126 subjects in the Human Connectome Project, a five-year initiative to map how areas of the human brain communicate with each other. The subjects performed motor, memory, and intelligence tests, including a pattern completion test that measured abstract reasoning—what neuroscientists call fluid intelligence.
Their connectomes, it turned out, had a lot to do with how well they scored. ...A strong connection between the frontal and parietal lobes, especially, meant a high fluid intelligence score.'
This is an interesting result as well, that connection between different areas of the brain predict abstract reasoning ability.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#4I wouldn't consider a measurement of a brain's mapping any different than the measurement of a person's height. Someone taller probably has a better chance of being a good basketball player, but there are plenty of basketball players who are excellent and not of exceptional height.
The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more than certain to be pattern matching or machine learning that is being done. You find some people that are good at doing X and have them take a test. Then you take new people, have them perform the same test, and if their scans are similar to the scans of the initial people, then you say these new people are pre-disposed to do X well.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#5I wouldn't consider a measurement of a brain's mapping any different than the measurement of a person's height. Someone taller probably has a better chance of being a good basketball player, but there are plenty of basketball players who are excellent and not of exceptional height. The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more tha…
I agree with you, though I'm not sure if height is even the best metaphor: our brains are remarkably changeable based on how we use them, so a better comparison might be measuring an athlete's muscle mass in different parts of the body.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#6I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning environment matching. But, the information will be there as soon as the research to figure out what types of connectome patterns indicate a pre-disposition to X is peer reviewed and published.
So, do we choose not to conduct research on certain subjects so that this process can be safely used for more benign purposes? Or, do we have really strict rules about what types of analyses can be done with a given scan? With attending rules about deleting scan data after it has been analysed for the intended purpose? Or something else entirely?
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#7I wouldn't consider a measurement of a brain's mapping any different than the measurement of a person's height. Someone taller probably has a better chance of being a good basketball player, but there are plenty of basketball players who are excellent and not of exceptional height. The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more tha…
"and not of exceptional height" but you still have to pass some mark to be competitive and I think this is important. You have to take in account that the job market is competitive, meaning that some people would have an intrinsic advantage over others.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#8I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning environment matching. But, the in…
> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.).
There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-paper IQ test (and highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier than a regular IQ test).
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#9I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning environment matching. But, the in…
> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simp…
Scans might be easier to sell to parents when putting the child in a different educational path than an IQ test. IQ tests may be perceived as just an individual rating the child, and parents that aren't completely happy with a result will get in the mindset that the tester "rated the child wrong" or "didn't measure the right things." An actual brain scan may be harder to argue and more effective in the end from the parents' point of view.
Re: Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
#10I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning environment matching. But, the in…
> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simp…
OK, maybe that was a bad example, but it also wasn't the point. If you do a connectome mapping for one particular purpose, the ability to analyze that mapping data for many other (perhaps more insidious) purpose seems like a real problem.
A better example than the kid example I pulled straight from the article: If someone gets their connectome mapped to help select treatment for some kind of mental disorder, it may also be possible to measure if that person is prone to violence etc. All kinds of conclusions can be drawn from the same data set, limited only by the research that has been done to that point.