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By Nina María Frahm Nina María Frahm is a research fellow and PhD candidate at the Munich Center for Technology in Society , Technical University Munich. Previously, she obtained a BA in European Studies and an MSc in Science and Technology Studies at Maastricht University, and was a research fellow at the Technical University of Berlin, where she investigated heterogeneous cultures of cooperation in collaborative forms of research and development of emerging technologies. Her interest in the crossroads of science, technology, and public policy was fueled during a junior research position at University of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, where she conducted a project on technologies for social inclusion. Her current interest in neuroethics focuses on different cultures of responsible knowledge-making in emerging brain science, and the limits and opportunities these cultures represent for transnational neuroscience.  There is a growing consensus about the need to better align neuroscience and...

By Henry T. Greely Henry T. (Hank) Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University. He specializes in ethical, legal, and social issues arising from advances in the biosciences, particularly from genetics, neuroscience, and human stem cell research. He directs the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Program on Neuroscience in Society; chairs the California Advisory Committee on Human Stem Cell Research; is the President Elect of the International Neuroethics Society; and serves on the Neuroscience Forum of the National Academy of Medicine; the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academy of Sciences; and the NIH Multi-Council Working Group on the BRAIN Initiative. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007. His book, THE END OF SEX AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN REPRODUCTION, was published in May 2016.  Professor G...

by Laura Otis, PhD Dr. Otis is a Professor of English at Emory University. Although she ultimately obtain ed a PhD in Comparative Literature and now teaches English literature, she holds a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and an MA in Neuroscience, and she worked in research labs for years. She was awarded a MacArthur fellowship for creativity in 2000 and is currently working as a visiting scholar at the  Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Editor's note: T he following post is the first of a pair of short essays about interdisciplinary teaching that will be featured on the blog. Stay tuned next week for Dr. Krish Sathian's "Why I teach with an English professor." It is often said that academic fields are becoming increasingly segregated as specializations develop more jargon and become more detailed with each new peer-reviewed paper. However, the classes co-taught by Professors Otis and Sathian are unique interdisciplinary spaces...

The highly-anticipated second volume of Gray Matters: Topics at the Intersection of Neuroscience, Ethics, and Society was released by the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues on March 26th. This report is in “response to President Obama’s request related to the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative .” According to the Commission’s announcement, in this volume “the Bioethics Commission broadly focused its analysis on three particularly controversial topics that illustrate the ethical tensions and societal implications of advancing neuroscience and technology: cognitive enhancement, consent capacity, and neuroscience and the legal system.” “In its latest release, the Bioethics Commission seeks to clarify the scientific landscape, identify common ground, and recommend ethical paths forward. Cautioning against hyperbole and misinformation when discussing the promise of neuroscience, the report offers 14 recommendations t...

The Montreal Neuroethics Conference for Young Researchers 2015 will be held in Montréal, Québec, on April 17th, 2015 at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), Montréal, Quebec. This one-day international conference is aimed at young researchers, trainees, and students from all fields interested in neuroethics. In addition to the program on the day of the event, we are hosting an essay competition where 5 winning papers in English will be candidates for fast-tracked publication in a special issue of the journal Neuroethics and 5 winning papers in French will be candidates for fast-tracked publication in a special issue of the journal Bioéthique Online.  Special Note from the Organizers: "Our immediate goals in organizing this conference are to increase the visibility of neuroethics among different international student populations and to bring young researchers in neuroethics together to facilitate future collaborations. Young researchers are the future ...

Julia Haas is a McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on decision-making. Over the past two decades, computational and neurobiological research has had a big impact on the field of economics, bringing into existence a new and prominent interdisciplinary field of inquiry, ‘neuroeconomics.’ The guiding tenet of neuroeconomics has been that by combining both theoretical and empirical tools from neuroscience, psychology and economics, the resulting synthesis could provide valuable insights into all three of its parent disciplines (Glimcher 2009). And although some economists have resisted the influence of neuroscience research (Gul and Psendorfer 2008), neuroeconomics has by all measures thrived as a theoretical endeavor, and proven itself as a discipline capable of marshaling substantial institutional and financial resources. For example, theories from economics and psychology have alre...

*Editor’s note: You can catch a lengthier discussion of this topic at our Jan 29th session of Neuroscience and Neuroethics in the News . When people think about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the courtroom, many often think of mind reading or colorful images of psychopathic brains. Portable fMRI machines capable of reading our personal thoughts pop into our heads and arouse a fear that one day a neuroscientist could reasonably discern our deepest secrets through a brain scan. Despite recent scholarship that suggests a world filled with covert fMRI lie detection devices is far away (if ever attainable), I think further attention should be paid to how people think about neuroscience and interpret scientific information that draws on brain-laden language, particularly in the courtroom (Farah, Hutchinson, Phelps, & Wagner, 2014). This topic is of special interest to me as it is the focus of my undergraduate research thesis. I also think it should be relevant to neuro...

As an undergraduate, I took several introductory level philosophy classes while majoring in neuroscience. Some of it I could appreciate and most of it went over my head, but a thought that kept nagging me was, “haven’t neuroscientists solved all of these issues by now?” It was only after I had worked in neuroscience laboratories for a few years that I began to realize just how qualified all of our statements had to be due to the plethora of limitations that go along with any result. I began to wince anytime I heard someone use the word “proof” (only salesmen use the term “clinically proven”, but don’t get me started on that…). It seems clear to me now that, for the most part, natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars are really all working toward the same goal just in different, albeit complimentary ways. At the first “Neuroscience, ethics and the news” journal club of the semester, Lindsey Grubbs, a PhD student in Emory University’s English Department, facilitated ...

By Stephen J. Morse, JD, PhD Stephen J. Morse is Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law, Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry, and Associate Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Society at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a board-certified forensic psychologist. His areas of expertise are criminal law, mental health law, and law and neuroscience. He is the recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s 2014 Isaac Ray Award for distinguished contributions to forensic psychiatry and the psychiatric aspects of neuroscience. He is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience editorial board. What is the relevance to the law’s behavioral criteria of the “new” cognitive, affective and social neuroscience that has been fueled by non-invasive techniques for studying the brain? By behavioral criteria, I mean those that require evaluation of the subject’s acts and mental states. For example, did a defendant charged with homicide kill the victim intentionall...