Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe they found a way to alter morality. Applying a strong magnetic field to the right tempero-parietal junction, thought to be the moral center of the brain, MIT Scientist Liane Young and her colleagues demonstrated that a magnetic field separates intentions from expected outcomes. For example, the group used a scenario where a boyfriend walked his girlfriend across a bridge with two different intentions: one, no harm intended; or two, to break her ankle. They found that the magnetic field made it harder for the subject to determine the boyfriend's intention and instead made judgments based on the outcome. Hence, if a situation had good intentions but bad outcomes, then a test subject would focus more on the situation's bad outcome. To quantify their data, test subjects ranked the "moral acceptability" of the scenario on a seven-point scale. Relative to control subjects, differences came down to one point, indicating that the experiment did not completely remove the sense of morality. In addition to providing insight into how morality is organized in the brain, Young believes the finding could have other implications. The magnetic field can lead juries to determine guilt based on the outcome rather than a criminal's intentions. Although far more research must be conducted before discovering the full extent of its applications, the finding nevertheless provides a powerful link between the moral mind and physical brain.
-compiled by Aradhya Nigam
Read More
U.Va. Health sees a spike in COVID-19 cases
By Emily Horn | September 4, 2023U.Va. Health ended their vaccination requirements in August, and masks were made optional in most hospital areas in early April.
U.Va. Cancer Center harnesses $12 million grant to support opportunities for undergraduates, ongoing research and new center
By Ellen Wu | January 12, 2023The grant provides an opportunity to establish the Center for Systems Analysis of Stress-Adapted Cancer Organelles, which seeks to find the cause of cancer in individual organelles.
U.Va. Health's rural neurology clinics receive a $500,000 grant to fund research and patient care
By Shrinidhi Kittur | January 12, 2023Established in the rural towns of Tazewell, Abingdon and Wise, the clinics have been providing patient care to otherwise underserved populations for decades.
