Dec 6 2011
Recent advances in understanding how memory functions and how memories could potentially be erased medically have raised numerous ethical questions. Scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars will explore the neuroethics of memory at a symposium organized by SUNY Downstate Medical Center on Friday, December 9, at the SUNY Global Center, 116 East 55th Street, New York, New York.
The speakers are Andr- A. Fenton, PhD, New York University and SUNY Downstate Medical Center; David Glanzman, PhD, UCLA; Merle Kindt, PhD, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Adam Kolber, JD, Brooklyn Law School; John L. Kubie, PhD, SUNY Downstate; S. Matthew Liao, PhD, New York University; Todd C. Sacktor, MD, SUNY Downstate; and David Wasserman, JD, Yeshiva University.
Topics of discussion include memory erasure and enhancement; reconsolidation of memory; post-traumatic stress disorder; addiction; chronic neuropathic pain; "rebooting the brain"; clinical implications and "slippery slopes"; and how the transformation of the autobiographic self affects moral decision making.
The symposium begins at 9:00 am with welcoming remarks by Kathleen Powderly, PhD, CNM, director of the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities, SUNY Downstate, and Mark Stewart, MD, PhD, dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Downstate. A panel discussion with all the speakers beginning at 2:45 pm will conclude the event.
Source: SUNY Downstate Medical Center