Neuroethics

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT New technologies that modulate brain function have tremendous potential for alleviating the persistent burden of depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders, but also raise challenging ethical and societal questions regarding self-ownership and control over our thoughts, emotions and actions. For these reasons, the President’s Bioethics Commission and other experts have called for the integration of ethics and neuroscience from the earliest stages of research.

Project Summary Recent advances in neurotechnologies have provided us with the ability to modulate brain function by direct and indirect interventions. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is one such intervention that has already been FDA-approved for certain disorders, and its use has already raised ethical questions about ways in which direct brain stimulation may affect personal identity, autonomy, authenticity and, more generally, agency. Thus far the neuroethical worries have been largely based on anecdotal clinical reports.