For over 20 years The Gruter Institute has been assembling biologists, legal scholars, primatologists, economists, anthropologists, and more recently neuroscientists, to discuss how human legal behavior is both facilitated and constrained by our biological nature. One principle consistently guiding the Institute is that "if law is fundamentally aimed at affecting human behavior, then it makes sense for the law to understand human behavior."

While last year's theme was sensory systems and the law with an emphasis on the neurobiology of decision making, this year's meeting at Squaw Valley, explored the intersection of Law, Human Behavior and the Brain. Here are a few highlights from the first day:

Owen Jones began the meeting with an ambitious list of questions that legal scholars should be asking behavioral scientists. Among them was this one: "What proof do we have that evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience will be important 20 years out?" Hopefully, my talk on our emerging neurosociety and the important role that biochips and brain imaging will play in driving future societal change put this question to bed.

After lunch legal scholar J.B. Ruhl explored how complex adaptive systems research could inform legal research and policy. J.B. was particularly interested in the policy implications of neurotechnology, an area I am sure we will be hearing more from him in time.

Peter Huang gave a very forward thinking talk titled "Effective Regulation of Affective Investing: Regulating Emotional Investing in Bipolar Securities Markets." Peter's knowledge of neurofinance and the potential policy implications was extremely impressive.

In the last talk of the first day, the ever insightful neuroeconomist Kevin McCabe provided an overview of his latest neuroeconomic research. Let's just say that Kevin understands intelligent experimental design is critical to getting anything out of an fMRI.

More manana.

Come hear Paul Kaihla, Senior Writer for Business 2.0, and me tonight in Mountain View talk about the future. He is speaking on the “The Coming Job Boom," and I will be giving my last talk this year on "The Neurotechnology Wave (2010-2060)."

RSVP now as only a few spaces are left. More info.

The 33rd annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience is halfway through its six day program. With over 34,000 members, the Society for Neuroscience represents all the hard working individual scientists and companies that spend each day driving the neurotechnology wave into existence.

Here is a brief overview of some of the sessions so far:

1. Congratulations to Bernice Grafstein, recipient of the Women in Neuroscience lifetime achievement award. Also, congratulations to Carol Barnes, the new President of SfN.

2. Odor Maps and Odor Codes: Odor detection in the nose is mediated by 1,000 diverse odorant receptors in humans. Odor is quite important. Sounds like progress on the sensoceutical front.

3. Neuroethics: An Uncertain Future by Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief, Science. This is important as thought reading devices continue to advance.

4. Other Amazing Advances: love and neuroeconomics, addiction, false memories, chronic pain, simulating neurons, international neuroscience, and one extra for you music lovers.

Yesterday I had lunch with Sam Barondes, author of Better than Prozac, Mood Genes and Molecules and Mental Illness near his home in sunny Sausalito.

I was fortunate enough to meet Sam along with Sol Snyder at the 2003 Staglin Family Music Festival for Mental Health a few weeks ago. Given Sam's fifty plus years of biopsychiatric research, he quickly appreciated the neurosociety concept. At the same time, he challenged my assumptions about the potential to develop neuroceuticals at the level of specificity that I am suggesting will be possible in the coming decades. Unable to counter Sam's depth of knowledge in psychopharmacology, I turned to history to help support my case.

Using several examples from previous techno-economic waves, I shared that most leaders at the cutting edge of their disciplines have not been able to conceive how far their particular discipline would advance in the decades to follow.

In particular, I mentioned that the case of computer scientists in the 1960s who couldn't see a way, or even a reason why, there would be computers in every home, car and telephone just a few decades later. This sparked an example from his own past about the many conversations he had with his friend, mentor and later Nobel Laureate, Marshall Nirenberg, at the NIH during the 1950s about how they could not conceive of how people would ever be able to read the genetic code. Yet with "Poly U" they did!

Sam is having a birthday party for an old post-doc of his today (to whom he gave E.O. Wilson's original Sociobiology several decades ago). After that he is off to Singapore to celebrate the opening of the Biopolis Centre (see photos) and then to the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans. I look forward to sharing more of my future conversations with Sam around our emerging neurosociety.

Our emerging neurosociety is being driven by many factors --

1. Mindful Donations Accelerate Basic Brain Research

• Allen Institute for Brain Science Announced with $100M:   Paul Allen is intrigued by how genes create intricate circuitry that controls all emotion, thinking and movement.  He said he expects to continue financing the institute after its first project — mapping the cells in the mouse brain — is complete in three to five years.
  
• Staglin Family Music Festival has raised over $22M:   With 100 percent of the expenses for the Festival underwritten by the Staglins, all proceeds go directly to scientific research through NARSAD (National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression) and several other research and treatment programs, including those at UCSF, Stanford University, UCLA, The University of Southern Florida, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, as well as Aldea, Inc. of Napa and Sonoma. This year’s festival raised $1.8 million with new $9.5 grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health for projects seed with Music Festival money.

2. Brain Imaging Breakthroughs Continue

Derek lucidly explains a new breakthrough in NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) brain imaging that "can be 10,000 times more sensitive than usual."  Another example of progress towards breaking the brain imaging bottleneck.

3. The Search for Meaning is Increasing

Shoshana Zuboff nails some fundamental issues driving our emerging neurosociety --

"We are the new individuals on the other side of this chasm—more educated, informed, experienced and connected than at any other time in history. There are hundreds of millions of us around the world. Above all, we seek psychological self-determination. We share an interest in taking our own lives into our own hands. We want to be the origins of our own meanings... We want to eliminate stress and hassle."

"No, I shall not entirely die beyond the grave much."  An amazing woman.

The Staglin Family put on the best fund raising event in Napa each year, and the 2003 Music Festival for Mental Health looks to continue the growing tradition tomorrow.  The day begins early and it looks like it will reach well into the 90s.  Thank goodness for the wine caves.

• 12:00 noon - Dr. Sol Snyder, director of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center's Department of Neuroscience, will lecture on drugs and the brain in the concert tent. (free to the public)
  
• 2:00 - A reception will convene in the winery caves, presenting a selection of rare wines, including Harlan, Colgin, Lynch, Screaming Eagle, and Diamond Creek. Yountville Chef Bob Hurley's hors d'oeuvres will be present should anyone get hungry. ($250/person)
  
• 3:30 - Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis and his trio will perform under the tent.
  
• 5:45 - Dinner at last, orchestrated by Chef Wayne Nish of New York City's March restaurant. ($2500/person)

"This festival was conceived eight years ago as a celebration of life. The generosity of so many individuals, corporations and volunteers has allowed us to exceed $11 million in gifts since its inception and provide substantial support to research and care," said Shari Staglin.  "We are engaged in a struggle of major proportions to fight for the cures for mental illness which continues to affect more than 20 million Americans annually."

Last year's event began with a scientific symposium featuring Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, whose work on the biology of memory storage and related disorders neatly captivated the audience.  In addition, two other Nobel laureates, John Nash and Michael Spence joined the party to share in the festivities. (see photo of the three of them with Garen Staglin)

Tomorrow I'll be pouring the Lynch 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon in the wine caves, so I won't be able to attend the other interesting event happening in the Bay Area tomorrow: Accelerating Change Conference 2003.

Other: Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean's view of Mental Health in America

Neurophilosophy: The heavy ethical concerns that neurotechnology presents means that deep neurophilosophical discussions remain neglected. (Neurophilosophy or Philoneuroscience - Science book reviews - sub req'd) 

Neurotechnology:  I'm looking forward to seeing the trees as James Cavuto's guest at tomorrow's Neurotech Leader Forum here in S.F.  My goal is to share Susan Greenfield's broad definition of neurotechnology that recognizes neuroceutical innovation.

Style: Elle gets it, when will Seed?  If The Substance of Style is anything like Virginia Postrel has ever chosen to accent, then she has probably discovered the pain pleasure principle underlying economic change.  I look forward to reflecting on her thoughts at the Shore Club in a few weeks with Casey.

The best way humanity has figured out how to build credible knowledge is by using the scientific method.  One key element in this process is testing the hypothesis under scrutiny.  Well-designed tests can reveal new truths, while poorly designed ones can spread false hope.  Advances in neurotechnology (from brain imaging to biochips) represent new tools that can create valuable new data for anyone performing tests centered on being human. 

I see a significant surge in the need to provide researchers across all the humanities, social and life sciences with open access to the latest advancements in neurotechnology to help test old and new hypotheses. 

To ensure sufficient capacity exists to support this research, I will be talking with many of the Gruter participants at the Sensory Systems and Judgment in Law conference this weekend about the creation of an Independent Global Neurotechnology Institute where researchers across all disciplines (especially those researchers who currently don't have access to this type of technology or who are unfamiliar with its value) will be able to compete for access to the most advanced neurotechnology.

Working in cooperation with the leading instrument makers, the IGNI will allow researchers to push the envelope of mental science. IGNI's goals include improving the quality and interrelatedness of imaging and biochip research in order to help set standards for the research community at large.

The first phase of the five year project requires a $5M endowment to: purchase the latest tools, find a smart location, support initial research grants and begin the the development of educational seminars for emerging disciplines like neuroeconomics, neurosociology and neuroaesthetics. 

The organizational model would be similar to how the Santa Fe Institute for Complex Systems research has evolved. If you are interested in learning more about the IGNI, please email me.