Hastings Cent Rep. 2014 Mar-Apr;Spec No:S2-7. doi: 10.1002/hast.293.
For over a century, scientists have sought to see through the protective shield of the human skull and into the living brain. Today, an array of technologies allows researchers and clinicians to create astonishingly detailed images of our brain's structure as well as colorful depictions of the electrical and physiological changes that occur within it when we see, hear, think and feel. These technologies-and the images they generate-are an increasingly important tool in medicine and science. Given the role that neuroimaging technologies now play in biomedical research, both neuroscientists and nonexperts should aim to be as clear as possible about how neuroimages are made and what they can-and cannot-tell us. Add to this that neuroimages have begun to be used in courtrooms at both the determination of guilt and sentencing stages, that they are being employed by marketers to refine advertisements and develop new products, that they are being sold to consumers for the diagnosis of mental disorders and for the detection of lies, and that they are being employed in arguments about the nature (or absence) of powerful concepts like free will and personhood, and the need for citizens to have a basic understanding of how this technology works and what it can and cannot tell us becomes even more pressing.
一个多世纪以来，科学家们一直试图穿透人类头骨的保护屏障，进入活体大脑。如今，一系列技术使研究人员和临床医生能够以前所未有的细节描绘我们大脑的结构，以及当我们看到、听到、思考和感觉时大脑内部发生的电生理变化的生动图像。这些技术及其产生的图像在医学和科学领域是一种日益重要的工具。鉴于神经影像学技术在生物医学研究中所扮演的角色，神经科学家和非专业人士都应该尽可能清楚地说明神经图像是如何制作的，以及它们可以和不能告诉我们什么。此外，神经图像已经开始在法庭上用于定罪和量刑阶段，营销人员也在利用这些图像来改进广告和开发新产品，消费者也在将其用于诊断精神障碍和检测谎言，以及在关于自由意志和人格等强大概念的本质（或缺失）的争论中使用，因此公民需要对这项技术的工作原理以及它可以和不能告诉我们什么有一个基本的了解，这一点变得更加紧迫。
