Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 3...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 31 to 40.

        Neurotechnology’s advance is inexorable: devices that decode neural signals, heighten sensation, or even edit memory are migrating from conjecture to prototype. [I] As these capacities scale, the question ceases to be whether we can probe the mind, and becomes how we should delimit access to it. Neurorights propose ethical guardrails – rules for the custodianship of mental data, the preservation of agency, and protections against covert manipulation – so that intimate cognitive life is not annexed by markets, states, or capricious engineers. Over coming decades, hybrid human-machine systems may normalise brain-computer interfacing, rendering traditional privacy doctrines anachronistic without explicit, enforceable norms.

        Much of the urgency springs from experiments that demonstrate engineered control over perception. In 2019, Rafael Yuste’s team induced rats to ‘see’ absent stimuli via implanted electrodes, effectively choreographing neural activity. [II] If comparable interventions reach humans, the boundary between authentic experience and induced state could blur, with profound implications for consent. Such demonstrations complicate reassurances that implants merely record, rather than intervene in, brain states. Hence the call to codify neurorights before ubiquitous deployment: the law must not trail the laboratory by a decade.

        Existing medicine already hints at the stakes. Deep-brain stimulation alleviates Parkinsonian tremors and some epileptic seizures; Neuralink and similar ventures pursue bidirectional interfaces that can both write to and read from cortex. [III] With machine learning, such networks might classify affect, steer prosthetics, or decode intent from patterns. If such interfaces matured without safeguards, the intimate traffic of our minds could be surveilled, traded, or coerced at scale. Commercial neuromarketing – or partisan micro-targeting – would then exploit vulnerabilities far upstream of conscious deliberation.

        Neurorights sketch a legal-ethical framework: identity must remain intact; free will must be preserved; mental privacy must be inviolable; equal access must curb enhancement inequality; and protection against bias must prevent discrimination by thought-derived data. [IV] The NeuroRights Initiative advances these principles, promotes a corporate Hippocratic pledge, and pushes for global standards; Chile’s constitution now safeguards ‘mental integrity,’ while the OECD and Council of Europe articulate responsible innovation plans. If leading firms accepted such an oath, technological momentum could align with dignity rather than erode it.

(Adapted from Iberdrola  –  “Neurorights: What are neurorights and why are they vital in the face of advances in neuroscience?”)

Question 31. According to paragraph 1, neurorights chiefly aim to delimit access to the mind so that ______.

A. market or state actors cannot quietly commodify unprotected cognitive data

B. engineers may publish brain datasets while individuals retain retrospective consent

C. courts fully liberalise biohacking, expanding experimental freedom without liability risks

D. surveillance firms get equitable licenses to access anonymised neural signatures