In The Three Pound Enigma (Algonquin Books, 2006), a recent book on brain science, author Shannon Moffet describes the work of Dr. Bob Strickgold, a researcher at Harvard Medical School. Strickgold studies the effects of daily experience on dreaming, and, in order to provide subjects with the sensations he hopes will turn up in nocturnal reverie, exposes them to some high-intensity virtual reality. In the case of the author, a video-game simulation was employed that involved scooting down a ski slope.

But before stumbling onto the virtual approach, Strickgold had been deterred from this research by the anticipation of how his Institutional Review Board might react to an experimental design based on risky activity. Moffet quotes him as saying how “every time I thought of putting in an application to our human studies review board to take novices downhill skiing or white-water rafting, I just laughed”.

Presumably, Strickgold would have been approaching normal adults with some idea of the hazards involved in skiing or white water rafting — activities that beginners undertake all the time just for the thrill. Presumably too, Strickland’s protocol would have required him to explain these risks in detail to ensure complete awareness. Yet he still imagined that his IRB — with not just kicks but science at stake — would nix his application. Using fully informed consulting adults in an activity otherwise widely enjoyed would not pass muster — or so he concluded.

Perhaps there’s a case to be made for academic risk aversion when it comes to concussions and contusions. Would only that cultural trauma evoked a similarly heightened concern.