INTRODUCTION

My introduction to this book on neuroethics, a volume with a large diversity of topics, is based upon a very personal selection of some of the numerous highlights that form the contributory history of the field of neuroscience. This volume shows how the way in which we look upon the brain has changed – in a relatively short period of time – from being just one of the organs that housed a soul to being the focus of a huge multidisciplinary endeavor to study the source of the mind. The focus of brain research has moved through that endeavor from the study of macroscopically visible pathologies of the brain to the subtle structural and functional differences that form the basis of psychiatric disorders and of our character. The sexual differentiation of our brain in utero – the programming of our gender identity and sexual orientation for the rest of our life – is discussed as an example of one of the many aspects of our character that become hardwired in our brain during early development. The concept of a critical window during which a developmental process can take place in order to structure brain systems and their function for the rest of our life is also why it is so difficult to repair lesions in the adult brain. In spite of this difficulty, it is now possible to sketch a series of new technical developments in neuroscience that bear the promise of leading to new, effective therapeutic strategies to tackle brain disorders in the near future.