We all know that it is possible to modify human behavior artificially.Alcohol, drugs and even certain medications can alter our way of doing things and even our character .Scientists, in their In search of greater knowledge about the human brain, they investigate how this can be manipulated.This fact raises many ethical doubts, since although on the one hand these investigations can help people with diseases, on the other the misused result can be frightening.one of these investigations: the "pill of compassion" a real investigation.
The "pill of compassion"
Researchers at the Universities of California Berkeley and San Francisco collaborated in this research and discovered that there is a medication that acts on the prefontal cortex of our brain changing the neurochemical balance and that this translates into a c both in our social behaviors .After ingesting this medication increases our tendency to have "prosocial" behaviors or to be more fair in the distribution of resources and therefore more compassionate.
35 volunteers participated in the investigation men and women.I am presented with a problem of distribution of money with strangers. The first group was given a placebo and those of the second ingested tolcapone .The tolcapone is a medicine that many patients with Parkinson's usually take.Because it is known that decisions regarding economic justice/injustice are made in the prefrontal cortex and that this area of the brain is affected by dopamine , they wanted to check the consequence of giving them tolcapone, which is known as alar Ga dopamine effects.No one knew who had taken the placebo or the drug until the end of the test.At the end it was found that those who had taken tolcapone were much more intolerant of injustice when distributing the media than the other group and more compassionate .That's why they called her the «pill of compassion».
They showed that the manipulation of the compassion level is possible> if you modify the chemical composition of your brain and therefore, that social behaviors may be more influenced by biology than previously thought.
Each Once more is known about the neural circuits that govern our social behaviors and these investigations can help both to make the diagnosis as or to treat certain social dysfunctions. The tendency is to think that impartiality or fairness is a stable characteristic of each person and according to Dr.Hsu, who has directed the research, its results do not contradict this thesis, only They point out that that trait can be systematically affected if the neurochemical balance changes.
Thanks to these investigations in the future you can better understand how the increase or decrease of certain substances works to affected people for schizophrenia, mental illness or addiction and improve their social and environmental relations, in addition to providing new diagnostic or treatment tools .
What do you think about research like this one about the Pill of compassion? Do you think that in the long run Can I misuse them? If you were interested in this article, you might want to read the post:
-The human brain that scientists managed to connect to the Internet
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