i was just telling you about the part of the brain that s affected by the magnet, according to the study, by m.i.t. researchers. it s up here. so i guess this is your ear, around here, over to the right and the back of your brain. that s about as far as i can delve into science. i m going to bring leanne young back into the conversation. she s one of the researchers. leanne, you were talking about an example, we talked about this teenager texting and how we might have sympathy or judge her not to be morally bad because she the outcome was worse than her intent. let s talk about this man who allegedly tried to blow up an airliner on the way into detroit on christmas day, the underwear bomber we call him. certainly had the means and the intent to get it done, and it didn t end up hurting anyone. tell me about how this research lets us judge that. right. so, that s actually the kind of case where we saw the most striking affect of transcranial magnetic stimulation.
bad and making the moral or correct decision. m.i.t. says they can tinker with your moral come pus upass using powerful magnet. you can t turn it on your husband or wife. you can t make them evil or good, by something you pluck off the fridge. leanne young is a researcher at the department of brain and cognitive sciences at m.i.t. live from cambridge, massachusetts. thank you for joining us. i found this study fascinating. basically it starts with the fact that morality is not some sort of a theorial characteristic or part of your soul. you say it s governed by some part of your brain. that s right. we found out morality is rooted in the brain. and in particular, a part of the brain that is right above and behind the right ear. part of the brain uh-huh? by applying magnets to that part of the brain you can change the way we perceive things as being moral or immoral? right.
is there practical application for this so far? there are other uses for tms, and, of course, we use tms as an experimental tool, but i think as far as morality goes, it s a sort of proof of concept that we can study the different brain regions so how we make certain different kinds of decisions. a, i m truly fascinated by this, but, b, you ve done a great job of explaining it. you are the massachusetts institute of technology researchers in the department of brain and cognitive sciences, as smart as they get, but you ve made it accessible for us. thank you very much for having me. leanne young is a researcher with m.i.t. and it s a new hour, we ve got a new rounddown. president obama arrives in portland, maine, to tout his health care reform act and months from now we ll see the firms effects of that reform. i ll tell you what they are and when they ll hit. plus, allegation of beatings hurled at the church of