Neurological or neuropsychiatric disorders come at a great cost to society and governments. They can commonly occur and have debilitating impacts on memory and thinking, functioning, and overall wellbeing and quality of life. This makes neuroscience a crucial part of the scientific discourse, as it offers answers to questions of humans regarding these disorders, why they occur, and what can be done to prevent them.
Neuroscience helps create a fairer legal system
It’s important to understand the science behind human behavior. The neurobiology of making decisions, knowing the limits of memory, and the influence of emotions can help people craft fairer laws as well as appropriate punishments.
Scientific progress that details how the brain works, for instance, helps answer questions around motivations, decisions, and even the root of addition.
Neuroscience helps us change society for the better
There is an entire discipline around pushing the bounds of applied science, also known as neuroethics. Neuroethicists are tasked to ask difficult and often uncomfortable questions, helping us have a better, more profound understanding of how people, society, the environment, and social structures can be better.
Ethics, for example, guides health care professionals in treating humans with brain diseases or injuries. This is recognizing that unlike a patient that is treated for heart disease or a broken bone, the brain feeds us our feelings, emotions, and even free will. This brings about questions of informed consent and morality in dealing with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease or risky brain tumors.
Neuroscience makes us better every day
Cognitive enhancement, which entails the use of either synthetic or natural brain enhancers such as nootropics, is a fairly complex discipline – but a vital one at that. Some brain enhancers involve the use of computerized cognitive training and devices.
Drugs and supplements have also been developed for the same purpose, aiming to improve varied areas of learning, memory, focus and concentration, motivation, emotion recognition, and even mood.
The jury is still out on whether one should use “smart drugs” or nootropic stacks for their ongoing cognitive enhancement needs. There are also ethical issues surrounding this form of enhancement. But what rings true today and in the future is that neuroscience will have far-reaching effects on both the individual and the society they live in. The brain, after all, is the “citadel of the senses” and the source of human health’s greatest complexities.
