Page - 143 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

Cyberneuroethics • 143 was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was ‘no longer Gage’.171 Although some accounts of Gage’s life after 1848 were not always accurate,172 his case became a widely used example of how changes to the brain could have effects on personality and moral behaviour. Another famous case, which was described in 2003, is that of a forty- year-old married schoolteacher who slowly became obsessed with child pornography, started to solicit prostitutes and sought to molest his step- daughter. Eventually, his wife evicted him from the family home after discovering his sexual advances towards her daughter. He was then accused and found guilty of molesting children. However, just before he began his prison sentence, he was admitted to hospital for headaches and an uncontrol- lable sex drive. An MRI scan indicated that he had an egg-sized brain tumour in the frontal lobe, which is important in regulating judgement, social behav- iour and self-control. The tumour had also affected the hypothalamus, which plays a role in controlling sexual impulses. Interestingly, when the tumour was removed, the inappropriate sexual drive vanished and the patient was able to behave normally. But after a number of months, the man secretly started to watch pornography again. Another MRI scan revealed that the tumour had regrown and was subsequently removed. As a result, the new inappropriate sexual drive disappeared once more.173 Intentional, though coarse, personality-altering technologies have also been in existence for some time, such as ECT, castration, psychoactive drugs and behavioural therapies. Even experiences of violence, containment and torture have been considered in seeking to change the behaviour traits of a person. In the past, treatments of personality disorders were usually considered for persons with behavioural problems, such as ‘irrational criminals’ or sexual perpetrators, and  – in the rationale of authoritarian and totalitarian politi- cal regimes  – certain political dissidents (who were also seen a criminals, mentally ill or both).174 An example of such procedures was presented by the English writer Anthony Burgess (1917–93) in his 1962 book A Clockwork Orange, in which a violent sexual attacker is subjected to a correction treat- ment in which he is forced to witness violent crimes in order to inhibit his violent tendencies.175 From a less fictional perspective, Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in patients suffering from neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, has also been reported to sometimes have personality-altering effects that may be significant, immediate, surprising and dramatic,176 but these appear to be reversible when the DBS equipment is turned off. On the other hand, for some patients affected by Parkinson’s disease, the changes in personality This open access edition has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale.