Program to address neuroscientific progress in pain management

Science now offers us ever more advanced ways to understand and control pain. But with those new treatments come new questions about the use (and misuse) of state-of-the-art technology and how far pain management can and should go. Is pain a symptom or a disease? How much pain should be relieved? Can reducing pain be inappropriate or detrimental? Can technologies capable of scanning the brain tell us whether a patient is really experiencing pain? And what questions arise in confronting (and treating) pain in animals and other non-human beings?

On November 13, the Center for Neurotechnology Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies will present the lecture “From a Neuroscience of Pain to a Neuroethics of Care” by Prof. James Giordano, internationally known for his work on the neuroscience and neuroethics of pain. The program will address the neuroscientific progress achieved during the Congressionally-designated Decade of Pain Control and Research, and discuss the ethical implications of this knowledge for medicine, and society at large. Researchers are now looking ahead to a Decade of the Mind, and this lecture raises questions about whether what we know about pain will both guide and be guided by what we seek to learn about the mind, and the nature of self and others.

What: CCNELSI Lecture: “From a Neuroscience of Pain to a Neuroethics of Care”

Who: James Giordano, Ph.D.

Where: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 901 North Stuart Street, Suite 200, Arlington, VA, 22203

When: November 13, 2009, 3:30 – 6:00 pm