Letters: What brain mapping can’t cure

Re “Ambitious effort aims to map brain,” April 3

Although I understand President Obama’s humorous intent, I don’t believe even the most exhaustive understanding of the workings of the brain could even come close to explaining “all kinds of things that go on in Washington.” And sadly, the lack of empathy, compassion, fairness and simple decency exhibited in Washington represents only an example, one small measure of our spiritual collapse.

Although the effort to map the brain may result in treatments for Alzheimer’s and autism and ways to reverse the effects of a stroke, I hold out little hope that being who we are, that despite the most brilliant and ambitious scientific explorations, we will ever approach a cure for the most pernicious disease of all: man’s inhumanity to man.

Ronald Rubin

Topanga

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