Bioethics: brain data and consent
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Debate whether brain-scan data should be used to predict behavior, then post a CER.
1. Open your materials
Use the materials named in the first step below. Open lesson resources.
2. Start the work
Read the prompt: should courts or schools use brain scans to predict how a person will act?
Show all 5 required steps
- Read the prompt: should courts or schools use brain scans to predict how a person will act?
- List two possible benefits and two dangers of predicting behavior from brain data.
- Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning.
- Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest counterpoint.
- Post a CER response on consent and brain data.
Lost your place? Lost your place? Find the debate prompt in step 1 (courts and schools using scans), then jump to step 3 and write your one-sentence claim before you post your CER in step 5.
Check your work before submitting
- You can take a position on predictive use of brain data.
- You can weigh a benefit against a civil-liberty risk.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- One-paragraph CER taking a position on whether brain-scan data should be used by courts or schools to predict future behavior.
How to submit and name your file
Post to class board and screenshot for your evidence packet.
In Schoology, open your course and the assignment for this lesson. Attach your file, select Submit, and check that it appears in the submission.
PDF upload helpYou get two school days for every day you were absent, so this deadline moves with you.
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Check the section number beside Human Anatomy and Physiology in Schoology.
Assignment: Wk8 CER: Bioethics: brain data and consent
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: A neuron converts its electrical signal into a chemical one at the axon terminal because electricity cannot cross the synaptic cleft, so neurotransmitters must carry the message to the next cell. Today: Neuroimaging shows brain structure and activity but not future choices, so using scan data to predict behavior without consent trades away individual autonomy for a promise the technology cannot keep.
Unit 2 guide: what to keep and use nextOptional: listen or watch a unit review▸
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Neuroimaging shows brain structure and activity but not future choices, so using scan data to predict behavior without consent trades away individual autonomy for a promise the technology cannot keep.
- 0-5Intro: what neuroimaging can and cannot tell us
- 5-20Independent reading and benefit/danger list
- 20-40John Carroll bioethics debate
- 40-55Draft claim and strongest evidence
- 55-75Write and post CER
- 75-80Class share: strongest civil-liberty vs public- arguments
- • This week we study the nervous system: neurons, synapses, , and the organization of the central and peripheral systems.
- • Before we go inside the brain, here is the question the technology raises. If a brain scan could tell a judge that someone is likely to reoffend, should that be used as evidence?
- • This is not science fiction. Courts have admitted neuroimaging data in sentencing. Today you decide whether that is ethical.
- • Your CER must engage with both the science and the ethics. A weak science claim or a vague ethical argument will cost you points.
- • Neuroimaging modalities include MRI (structure), fMRI (blood flow as a proxy for activity), and EEG (electrical activity). None can reliably predict specific future behavior.
- • Using brain data without violates the same principles as using any other medical data without patient permission.
- • The tension between social utility (public benefit) and individual autonomy (right to privacy of thought) is a core bioethical conflict in neuroscience.
PLTW connection and today's work
Open Activity 2.1.1 Mind Matters (Lesson 2.1 Getting Nervous) in myPLTW and complete the introductory task; use a fact about the brain regions you are studying in place of brain-scan technology in your brain-data-and-consent CER.
Today's stopping point: The neuron task opened Lesson 2.1 yesterday; today the Mind Matters introductory task should be checked off.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Course connection
- Activity 2.1.1 Mind Matters
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
Show another explanation or a smaller first step
Need help? Choose a starting point
Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
A converts its electrical signal into a chemical one at the axon terminal because electricity cannot cross the synaptic , so neurotransmitters must carry the message to the next cell.
Neuroimaging shows brain structure and activity but not future choices, so using scan data to predict behavior without consent trades away individual autonomy for a promise the technology cannot keep.
A review board sorts scientific evidence, stakeholder needs, possible benefits, possible burdens, and uncertainty before choosing a policy.
- Which statements are scientific evidence?
- Which statements express a value or priority?
- Who receives the benefit and who carries the burden?
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
- • Evidence cards map to source-backed findings.
- • Stakeholder cards map to affected people and priorities.
- • The recommendation maps to an explicit tradeoff with a named uncertainty.
Driving question: Should a court or a school in Cleveland be allowed to order a brain scan and use it to predict how a student or a defendant will act in the future?
What you already know: A converts its electrical signal into a chemical one at the axon terminal because electricity cannot cross the synaptic , so neurotransmitters must carry the message to the next cell.
New idea: Neuroimaging shows brain structure and activity but not future choices, so using scan data to predict behavior without consent trades away individual autonomy for a promise the technology cannot keep.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for Bioethics: brain data and consent. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in today's lesson.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: Should a court or a school in Cleveland be allowed to order a brain scan and use it to predict how a student or a defendant will act in the future?
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
- • : A nerve cell with branching dendrites that receive input and a long axon that sends an electrical signal to the next cell.
- • : A branching extension of a that receives incoming signals from other nerve cells and carries them toward the cell body.
- • axon: The long, slender fiber of a that carries electrical signals away from the cell body toward other cells.
- • : The junction where a releases chemical messengers across a tiny gap to pass a signal to the next neuron, muscle, or gland.
- • : A chemical messenger released by a that crosses the to pass a signal to the next neuron, muscle, or gland.
- • CNS: The central nervous system, made of the brain and spinal cord, which processes information and directs the body's responses.
- • PNS: The peripheral nervous system: all the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that carry signals between the body and the central nervous system.
- • : The largest part of the brain, split into two hemispheres, that handles thinking, voluntary movement, sensation, language, and memory.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
Limit: Scientific evidence can inform the options and likely consequences, but it cannot choose a single value-neutral answer.
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
Limit: A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
You can take a position on predictive use of brain data.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-HAP-2027-03-09 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: anatomy and physiology consultant
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
- • Allow the scan, because a brain image shows what a person is thinking and how they will act.
- • Require proof that a scan predicts one person's future behavior, not just a group average, before allowing it.
- • Argue that scan data stays medical data, so no court or school may order it without consent.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the claim-evidence-reasoning response.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
Context: Medical data about the brain is still medical data, so the right to consent and to privacy of thought does not disappear just because a scan can see inside your head.
- • T1: Read the prompt: should courts or schools use brain scans to predict how a person will act?
- • T2: List two possible benefits and two dangers of predicting behavior from brain data.
- • T3: Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning.
- • T4: Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest counterpoint.
- • T5: Post a CER response on consent and brain data.
- • E1: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
- • E2: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- • E3: You can take a position on predictive use of brain data.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for Bioethics: brain data and consent. Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
Mean = sum of values / number of values. Median = middle ordered value. Range = maximum - minimum.
For 2, 4, 4, and 10: mean = 20 / 4 = 5, median = 4, and range = 10 - 2 = 8.
Mean, median, and range keep the measurement unit. Order the values before finding the median.
Calculate the requested summary for today's supplied values, then write what it reveals and what it hides.
Students often think Students often think a brain scan reads your thoughts and can predict what you will do, the way it looks in movies.. The trap: That is the trap. An fMRI shows blood flow averaged over groups, not a crystal ball for one person, so treating a scan as proof of future behavior punishes people for a picture that cannot actually predict them.
Claim: An employer should not be allowed to use a worker's genetic test results to decide who gets hired or promoted.
Evidence: A DNA test can show whether a person carries a gene variant linked to a condition, such as the BRCA1 variant tied to higher breast-cancer risk, but carrying a variant is not the same as having the disease or being unable to do a job. Most conditions also depend on many genes plus environment, so a single result gives a probability, not a certainty. In the United States, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 already bars employers from using genetic information in employment decisions, and results shared for a medical reason cannot be repurposed without the person's informed consent.
Reasoning: Because a genetic result reports a risk rather than a fact about present ability, using it to screen workers would penalize people for a condition they may never develop and cannot control. That trades a person's privacy over their own genetic code for a hiring benefit the data does not actually deliver, so the civil-liberty cost outweighs the weak predictive gain. The strongest counterpoint I considered was that an employer might want to know about health risks to plan for absences, but that concern is better met through voluntary accommodations and consent, not through a test result the worker never agreed to share for that purpose.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: A parallel one-paragraph Claim-Evidence-Reasoning model on whether an employer should be allowed to use a worker's genetic test results in hiring, citing a fact about what a DNA test can and cannot show. It models the CER format and depth for a different consent question and does not answer today's brain-scan prompt.
- Write one defensible claim.
- Choose specific evidence that supports the claim.
- Explain the scientific rule that connects the evidence to the claim.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Post to class board and screenshot for your evidence packet.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in Bioethics: brain data and consent. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Play the cold open at the start of the unit to set the scene. Each recording is AI-generated and simulated (fictional callers, no real people or student data).
Hand-picked readings, videos, and interactives for this lesson, all free and from authoritative open organizations (NIH, CDC, OpenStax, Khan Academy, PhET, HHMI, and more).
A fillable, Cornell-style notebook for Unit 2: Research Ready. Type your notes, cues, and summaries right in the PDF, or print it and write by hand. Each lesson page has a cue column, a notes column, and a summary box, plus dated lab-record pages you can turn in.
HBS Unit 2 notebook: Research Ready Fillable PDFCornell notes + lab recordsOpenVetted readings and references for this unit. Use them to prepare, to catch up if you were absent, or to go deeper on today's target.
This site may ask you to verify you are human. If it blocks you on a school device, ask for the class copy.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
A prosecutor says an fMRI 'proves' the defendant is dangerous. What is the single biggest problem with that claim?
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
Run this before you touch the bench. It is built from the real lab procedure, so the decisions you make here are the ones you will make with the equipment in your hands.
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
Read the linked overview on the brain, then post a written CER on whether brain-scan data should predict behavior, citing one fact from the resource.
MedlinePlus: Brain diseasesPost to class board and screenshot for your evidence packet.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
Khan Academy: Nervous System- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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