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By Laura Y. Cabrera, Rachel McKenzie, Robyn Bluhm Image courtesy of the U.S. Airforce Special Operations Command . Treatments for psychiatric disorders raise unique ethical issues because they aim to change behaviors, beliefs, and affective responses that are central to an individual’s sense of who they are. For example, interventions for depression aim to change feelings of guilt and worthlessness (as well as depressed mood), while treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder try to diminish both problematic obsessive beliefs and compulsive behaviors. In addition to the specific mental states that are the target of intervention, these treatments can also affect non-pathological values, beliefs, and affective responses. The bioethics and neuroethics communities have been discussing the ethical concerns that these changes pose for individual identity [1,2], personality [3,4], responsibility [5], autonomy [6,7], authenticity [8], and agency [9,10].  What we did Pharmacological interv...

By Phoebe Friesen Image courtesy of  Pixabay . In the last few decades, there has been an increasing push towards making science more participatory by engaging those who are part of or invested in the community that will be impacted by the research in the actual research process, from determining the questions that are worth asking, to contributing to experimental design, to communicating findings to the public. Some of this push stems from the recognition that research is always value-laden and that the values guiding science have long been those of an elite and unrepresentative few (Longino, 1990). This push also has roots in feminist standpoint theory, which recognizes the way in which marginalized individuals may have an epistemic advantage when it comes to identifying problematic assumptions within a relevant knowledge project (Wylie, 2003). Additionally, many have noted how including the voices of those likely to be impacted by research can support the process itself (e.g. by...

By Molly Ann Kluck Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons . When my neuroethics mentor approached me with a publication from Trends in Cognitive Science called “Functional Connectivity of the Human Brain in Utero” (1) in hand, I was immediately delighted by the idea of performing an ethical analysis on the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) on fetuses in utero. As of right now, I’m still conducting this ethical analysis.  Using fMRI to look at human brains as they develop in utero is groundbreaking for a couple reasons. For one, there is a vast difference between the fMRI method currently used to investigate developing brains and previous methods that were used to examine fetal brain development. Research on developing brains had utilized preterm neonates, or babies born prematurely. While these data are valuable, there are issues with validity associated with this method: early exposure to an abnormal environment (e.g. being in the intensive care unit, where many pre...

By Stephen Schueller Image courtesy of Pixabay . If you were to search the Google Play or Apple iTunes store for an app to help support your mental health you’d find a bewildering range of options. This includes nearly 1000 apps focused on depression, nearly 600 focused on bipolar disorder, and 900 focused on suicide (Larsen, Nicholas, & Christensen, 2016). But how much faith should you have that these apps are actually helpful? Or to take an even more grim position, might some apps actually be harmful? Evidence suggests the latter might be true. In one study, researchers who examined the content in publicly available bipolar apps actually found one app, iBipolar , that instructed people to drink hard liquor during a bipolar episode to help them sleep (Nicholas, Larsen, Proudfoot, & Christensen, 2015). Thus, people should definitely approach app stores cautiously when searching for an app to promote their mental health. One reason people might believe such apps could be helpful...

It is our pleasure to present you with  The Neuroethics Blog  Reader:  Black Mirror  Edition! This reader features the seven contributions from the blog's  Black Mirror  series, in which six different student writers explored the technology and neuroethical considerations presented in various  episodes of the British science fiction anthology television series.  As Dr. Karen Rommelfanger puts it:  T his reader "... features critical reflections on the intriguing, exciting and sometimes frightful imagined futures for neurotechnology. Every day, in real life, we move closer to unraveling the secrets of the brain and in so doing become closer to understanding how to intervene with the brain in ways previously unimaginable. Neuroscience findings and the accompanying neurotechnologies created from these findings promise to transform the landscape of every aspect of our lives. As neuroethicists, we facilitate discussions on the aspirations of neu...

By Michael N. Tennison  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons . Bioethicists and neuroethicists distinguish therapy from enhancement to differentiate the clusters of ethical issues that arise based on the way a drug or device is used. Taking a stimulant to treat a diagnosed condition, such as ADHD , raises different and perhaps fewer ethical issues than taking it to perform better on a test. Using a drug or device to enhance performance—whether in the workplace, the classroom, the football field, or the battlefield—grants the user a positional advantage over one’s competitors. Positional enhancement raises issues of fairness, equality, autonomy, safety, and authenticity in ways that do not arise in therapy; accordingly, distinguishing enhancement from therapy makes sense as a heuristic to flag these ethical issues.  These categories, however, do not capture the entire scope of the reasons for and contexts in which people use drugs or devices to modify their experiences. Con...