ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the issue of mental privacy insofar as functional neuro-imaging can reveal information about people's mental states and psychological traits. It discusses the metaphysical assumptions underlying the belief that brain reading will entail lack of mental privacy. It then highlights some efforts to approach the issue of functional neuro-imaging and its possible threat to privacy in the neuroethics literature. Rapid advances in functional brain-imaging technology during the last decade have enriched the knowledge of the living brain. Electroencephalography (EEG) allows the detection of the electrical activity of millions of neurons in different cortical regions. The positron emission tomography (PET) allows the identification of metabolic activity to particular areas of the brain by injecting the subject with radioactively labeled elements. The functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) allows the mapping of neural function by measuring correlated level of blood oxygenation in the brain.
