In the future, airline passengers could encounter a new security checkpoint: the brain scan.
That, at least, is the vision Britton Chance, professor emeritus of Biochemistry and Biophysics, has for rooting out airport threats.
Chance -- a researcher and inventor who colleagues say has made important contributions to fields including medicine and biology -- has been working for the past six years on testing for his "cognosensor."
"We are interested in airport security and whether or not malevolent intent could be detected readily," Chance said.
The apparatus as it currently exists uses optical imaging to probe into a subject's emotions, beaming infrared light through the forehead. Blood flow that activates brain tissues causes some of this light to reflect back, and detectors create a response pattern- -- a brain print.
A computer turns this data into a digital picture.
"Cognosensor" signals are more intense and come from a wider area when there is emotional stress, according to Chance.
But many challenges remain for the "cognosensor" before commercial availability.
"The signals aren't big," Chance said. "And they must be detected remotely, with some sort of telescopic device, and the time for data acquisition may be very short."
And beyond the technical complexities are more issues.
"Each individual has their own response to emotional distress and to decision-making," Chance said.
Art Caplan, director of Penn's Center for Bioethics, is concerned about discreetly screening passengers. But he also acknowledges that the invasion of privacy may be warranted.
"Those who buy an airplane ticket should go through all the procedures necessary to get on the flight," Caplan said, adding that if a passenger doesn't want to go through a checkpoint, they can turn around and go back.
Chance is well aware of the ethical concerns as well.
"There are ethical questions -- privacy questions -- which come into course when other people's lives are at risk," Chance said. "We have no idea where new technologies are going to take us. So let's be conservative."
College junior Sebastian Richards said he considers the innovation required to create such a device more important than any ethical questions about the "cognosensor," but does not view this device as an invasion of privacy.
"I don't really think" the device invades privacy, Richards said. "It's just like a metal detector."
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