Neuroethics of Memory to Be Explored at December 9 Symposium
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 André 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.
The symposium is free, thanks to generous funding from the John Conley Foundation for Ethics and Philosophy in Medicine, but pre-registration is required.
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About SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.
SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.