State of Mind

Dr. Kimberly Powell, a Ph.D. in neuropsychology, works in a research lab trying to understand the roots of violence by stimulating the brains of aggressive rats to reduce their savagery. Her successes lead to phase I safety trials in volunteers and prisoners, and then to phase II and III studies in patients. Soon it becomes clear that Kim's brain stimulating techniques, besides controlling aggression, offer the potential to cure a number of medical problems including Parkinson's disease, depression, PTSD, and many others. When the court instructs her to treat a psychopathic killer, she's appalled. What would such a killer, if cured, still owe to his victims and to society? The ethical implications of the research and especially its application on humans are substantial, but so, too, is her altruistic desire to help. Where is the balance and how far and how fast should these trials proceed—and, at what cost?