fMRI and THINKing sySTEMically
an essay by Sam Smith, Age 17
A
school of sociology called functionalism recognizes crime as a necessary part
of society. There are some sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim, who would go
so far as to say crime has positive benefits to society as a whole. While it may be hard to believe that crime is
beneficial, the majority of people would agree that every society has crime,
and nearly everybody has first or secondhand knowledge of what being the victim
of a crime is, like I do. Two days
before Halloween when I was in second grade, someone had broken into my home
and helped himself to whatever he wanted.
It brought my mom to tears, and it was the first time I had ever seen
her cry. Traumatic hardly begins to describe the experience. However, crime does not go unpunished. Innovations in technology, such as the fMRI,
can help protect us today and have the potential to completely revolutionize
tomorrow. Thinking systemically, we scoff at the impossible.
Unfortunately,
identifying those who have committed a crime is not usually an exercise in
simplicity. The fact of the matter is criminals don’t always announce their crimes. They lie.
Since their pants don’t burst into flames after lying, measuring the
veracity of peoples’ statements objectively is difficult. There are even ways of getting around a
polygraph test, which is the classic lie detecting machine, because the machine
typically measures the side effects of lying like perspiration and increased
heart rate and blood pressure. That’s
where the fMRI and classic polygraph are different. The fMRI takes a glimpse at the source of the
lie; the brain.
The
fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging. Essentially, a MRI is a powerful
electromagnet that causes the negatively charged hydrogen in a water molecule
to resonate and send out radio frequencies which can then be interpreted by the
MRI and used to reconstruct a picture of that body part. The fMRI also shows
the Blood Oxygen Dependent Levels (BOLD) this is important because the BOLD
signals change depending on where the oxygen goes, and since the oxygen demand
goes up in places with increased electrical activity and higher metabolism in
order to aid in cellular respiration, we can tell what areas of the brain are
being used and when.
Much
like organs in the body, different areas in the brain specialize at different
things. Also like the body, the brain prioritizes where the energy goes
depending on the need. For example, in a
dangerous situations, a person’s “fight or flight” response would kick in, and
less energy would go to organs like the stomach which is part of the digestive
tract because the muscles would need the energy more to fight or run away. With that in mind, and by understanding the
function of each area of the brain, we get a rough idea of what is going on
inside a person’s head by what areas are being used more than others. That is
why it can be determined whether or not someone is lying using an fMRI.
Though it shows great promise, the fMRI is still in the
developing stage of lie detecting. More subject groups are needed, and it needs
to be tested in more realistic scenarios until one specific marker can be
identified to determine if any one particular individual lied or not. In the
real world there are serious consequences for being caught lying that are
simply not present in a laboratory setting.
The raised stakes in the real world might alter the way a person thinks. On top of that, not everybody is wired quite
the same way. The fMRI has made quite a few strides, but it’s not there yet.
Once the fMRI is fully operational and widely accepted
and used, it would have massive consequences on crime. Its existence alone would serve as a
deterrent to possible future offenders.
Justice is more likely to be served if the fMRI corroborates with
investigators to make every deception plain.
But why stop there?
The fMRI is basically a rudimentary form of mind reading. If further developed and refined, and
probably with the help of not yet invented technology, the correlation between
the brain and the mind can be empirically established. The neural pathways of the brain that make
every person unique can be mapped out just like the human genome was not too
long ago.
Imagine the countless possibilities that could
happen! If the messages sent by the
nervous system were decoded, then it might be possible for an amputee to get a
prosthetic appendage that behaves exactly like the one he lost because it is
controlled directly by the same motor neurons the limb used to be. Furthermore,
if we can decode, it seems to follow that we could also encode the information
in the same manner and send it back to the brain as sensory information. A prosthetic hand that allows you to feel
temperature, pressure, and possibly even pain would not seem so farfetched
then. The impossibilities of today would
become a thing of the past.
In a way, SECME students are exactly like the fMRI
machines. They’re still developing their talents, they have incredible potential,
and working together they can start making sense of what at first seems to be
chaos. This is exactly what SECME kids deal with, and what makes the program so
crucial. SECME is a stepping stone that teaches problem solving, adaptability,
and the determination needed to face problems that may not even have arisen
yet.
SECME is more than a brain bowl or a mouse
trap car or even the VEX robot. It’s a chance to test yourself and see what you
can do, what you can come up with, and how can incorporate that with the work
of others.
The main goal of SECME isn’t to get you up
early on Saturday or give you extra credit in Physics class, but prepare the
future designers and engineers of America for when they’re building it. These
competitions are just stepping stones for when we work up to the real thing. A
robot built in the real world would most likely not be for scoring points in a
competition against other robots. But if we can do that, who’s to say we can’t
build one to go into burning buildings, climb stairs, or even drive our cars
for us.
It’s not even just about the science or
math aspect, either. It helps artists and creative people find ways to create
things like solutions out of nothing. It helps people become more verbal to
help communicate information. It simply helps people, but not all people. No,
SECME is only for those who wish to better themselves. If you’re not there to
improve, you might as well not be there. If you do want to improve, to learn,
to meet people similarly dedicated or interested, and just have fun taking part
in creating things that work, then SECME is a great place for you to be.
SECME students may not necessarily grow up
to build bridges and rockets as a career.
In fact, most probably won’t. Whatever it is that they do end up doing
will be better for having them though. These kids willing to spend a Saturday
at a competition will probably excel wherever they are. Those that do build may
be building houses, cars, or those prosthetics that feel, and imbuing the SECME
spirit to their work. Welcome to SECME, where by thinking systemically, the
impossible is yesterday’s news.
