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by Dr. L. Syd M Johnson Dr. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Bioethics in the Department of Humanities at Michigan Technological University. Her work in neuroethics focuses on disorders of consciousness and sport-related neurotrauma. She has published several articles on concussions in youth football and hockey, as well as on the ethics of return-to-play protocols in youth and professional football. This post is the first of several that will recap and offer perspectives on the conversations and debates that took place at the recent 2015 International Neuroethics Society meeting. At the International Neuroethics Society annual meeting in Chicago this month, Nita Farahany and a panel from the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University (FHPS) headlined the public talk “Is professional football safe? Can it be made safer?” The panel declined to provide direct answers to these important questions, but the short answers are “No,” and “Not by much,” respectively....

by Peter Reiner, PhD Dr. Reiner is Professor and co-founder of the National Core for Neuroethics , at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Reiner began his academic career studying the cellular and molecular physiology of the brain, and in 1998, Dr. Reiner became President and CEO of Active Pass Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company that he founded to tackle the scourge of Alzheimer's disease. Upon returning to academic life in 2004, Dr. Reiner refocused his scholarly work in the area of neuroethics. He is also an AJOB Neuroscience board member. Louis Brandeis in his law office, 1890. In 1890, Samuel Warren and his law partner Louis Brandeis 
published what has become one of the most influential essays in the history of US law. Entitled The Right to Privacy [1], the article is notable for outlining the legal principles that protect privacy of thought. But it is not just their suggestions about privacy that are illuminating – it is their insight into the ways that law has ...

It is my pleasure to present you with our first edition of The Neuroethics Blog reader. This reader includes some of the most popular posts on the site and highlights our junior talent. While the blog showcases cutting-edge debates in neuroethics, it also serves as a mechanism for mentoring junior scholars and students and providing them with exciting opportunities to have their pieces featured alongside established scholars in the field. In addition, the blog allows for community building, inviting scholars from multiple disciplines to participate. Our contributors have included individuals at various levels of education from fields such as law, neuroscience, engineering, psychology, English, medicine, philosophy, women’s studies, and religion, to name a few. Each blog post is a collaborative process, read and edited numerous times by the editorial leadership in partnership with the author. We aim to continue to mentor and deliver quality posts that serve to cultivate not only our ne...

by Lindsey Grubbs An intellectually diverse and opinionated crowd gathered recently for the most recent Neuroethics and Neuroscience in the News journal club at Emory University—“Your brain on movies: Implications for national security.” The discussion was one of the liveliest I've seen in the years I've been attending these events, which is perhaps not surprising: the talk touched on high-profile issues like neuromarketing (which is controversial enough that it has been banned in France since 2011) and military funding for neuroscience. The seminar was led by Dr. Eric Schumacher , Associate Professor of Psychology at Georgia Tech, director of the Georgia State University/Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Brain Imaging , and principle investigator of CoNTRoL —Cognitive Neuroscience at Tech Research Laboratory. Currently, the lab investigates task-oriented cognition, as well as the relationship between film narratives and “transportation” (colloquially, the sense of “getting l...

By Carlie Hoffman It is often said that we are products of our environment: who we are is shaped by the things, people, and situations with which we surround ourselves. However, whatever we may like to think, we are not in control of every facet of our environment. In fact, we are unknowingly and involuntarily exposed to dozens of man-made environmental chemicals, called toxicants , each day that can negatively alter our bodies and even our very brain matter. In essence, we are becoming literal products of our environment. Synthetic chemicals and toxicants are ubiquitous within our surroundings. While some toxicants come from obvious sources, like cigarette smoke and car exhaust, other sources of exposure are more subtle. For instance, electrical equipment (like computers and cell phones), beauty products (like makeup and shampoo), mattresses, and furniture all contain flame retardants , chemicals used to reduce flammability [3, 13]. Bisphenol A ( BPA ) and phthalates , c...

by Arthur T. Ryan, M.A. and Elaine F. Walker, Ph.D. Arthur Ryan is a graduate student in clinical psychology at Emory University. His research focuses on understanding the etiology and neuropathology underlying severe mental illness. Elaine Walker is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Emory University and is the Director of the Development and Mental Health Research Program, which is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health. Her research is focused on child and adolescent development and the brain changes that are associated with adolescence. She is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience editorial board. Arthur Ryan, M.A. Over the past several decades, there has been a significant effort to minimize bias against individuals based on ethnicity and other demographic factors through the creation of seemingly impartial and objective criteria across a host of domains. For example, when the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines wer...

by Victoria Saigle and Eric Racine, Ph.D. Eric Racine, Ph.D. Victoria Saigle is a graduate student at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal's Neuroethics Research Unit. She is a completing her MSc in Experimental Medicine at McGill University through the Biomedical Ethics Unit.  Dr. Eric Racine is the director of the Neuroethics Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal and holds academic appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Université de Montréal and in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, the Department of Medicine, and the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University. He is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. Discussing suicide can be difficult in clinical, public, and academic settings because many people have strong intuitions about which, when, and whether voluntary death is appropriate. However, discussions about suicide are largely abs...