I am writing a textbook and designing a course to be offered initially
through Harvard University's Extension School and then spreading out to
universities and various other distribution channels everywhere. Applied
Neuroeconomics surely isn't a title to attract great masses of people but
with the explosive growth currently underway in neuroscience unlikely to slow
down any time soon, ongoing opportunities for reaching students of business,
medicine, education and the social sciences around the world will be
substantial enough for generating worthwhile revenue long-term. My working
title for the book is "Decisions: The Art and Science of Neuroeconomics," and
the idea is to create two multi-layered Harvard courses with different
student testing strategies for different kinds of students: undergraduate,
graduate, non-credit, science background, non-science background.
Exciting new discoveries in neuroscience are revealed every week and the
future appears limited only by the imaginations of some wildly creative
thinkers. Inspiring more curiosity in this effort is both a self-propelling
crusade and a multi-faceted industry in its infancy as researchers uncover
wider and deeper avenues for developing applications connected to human
interactions of every kind.
As tempting as a quest for a neural map aimed at manipulation of others for
profit surely will become, a much greater goal, I think, lies in developing
and teaching neuroscientific techniques for reversing neural pathologies and
autonomously fortifying resolve in the individual.
All this begs an obvious question: what initiated this pursuit and line of
reasoning? That’s a fairly long personal story spanning nearly half a
century. As a child, I got pretty comfortable being one of the smart kids in
class. That lasted until 9th grade after a head injury suffered in a football
game left me, immediately, unable to see classroom chalkboards clearly enough
to read even from the front row. It took longer to notice deficits in
concentration and processing of verbal communication. My grades plummeted in
what looked to adult observers around me as a fairly extreme case of teenage
angst, but not anything worthy of investigation or much interaction.
Eventually my parents were informed that I would be unable to graduate high
school with my class. This happened one week before the end of 12th grade.
The fact that I was able to manufacture a nearly immediate escape from this
conundrum was my first clue, with ample hindsight, that I might find a
permanent solution.
Sadly, lack of understanding of what generated that sudden progress ushered
in decades of wildly inconsistent and mostly humiliating poor performance.
Fortuitously, an even more astonishing shock of insight about a decade ago
inspired zealous exploration of neuroscience literature on my own and
ultimately a plan to endure a course of study at a certain private school.
Having just completed course work for that degree, I’m now seeking further
training and assistance to maximize the value of this progressing effort.
Email: daa224@g.harvard.edu
Project Owner
David Adams