| 2018 Annual Meeting San Diego, CA, USA November 1-2Meeting HighlightsHighlights / SummariesMeeting ProgramSponsorsThemed ‘Cutting Edge Neuroscience, Cutting Edge Neuroethics,’ the 2018 Annual Meeting of the International Neuroethics Society gathered a diverse group of scholars, scientists, clinicians, and professionals dedicated to the responsible use of advances in brain science. Attendees came together for an intellectually stimulating and dynamic conference that explored technologies challenging and advancing our understanding of the brain.Photo collection – Courtesy of Gillian Hue, Emory University / AJOB Neuroscience  Recognitions / NewsHelen Mayberg is the 2018 Recipient of the Steven E. Hyman Award – News (INS)Scientists, Ethicists And Lawyers Tackle Big Questions In Brain Research – Press ReleaseStudent/Postdoc Essay Contest Winnershttps://player.vimeo.com/video/304898347Plenary SpeakersTom InselMindstrong HealthSmartphones Offer an Unprecedented Opportunity to Gather Data for Mental Healthcare, But We Must Confront the Ethical Dilemmas – Interview with Tom Insel (INS)Report on ASBH annual conference and INS annual meeting – Paolo Corsico (IME)Emily PostanUniversity of EdinburghCould Neurotechnology Change How We Define Ourselves? – Interview with Emily Postan (INS)Keith HumphreysStanford UniversityEthics and Compassion, Key Elements for Addressing Opioid Use Disorder – Tabitha MosesAddiction and Policy Expert is Taking a Crash Course in Neuroscience – Interview with Keith HumphreysPublic ProgramMy Brain Made Me Buy It? The Neuroethics of AdvertisingIn partnership with the Center for Ethics in Science and TechnologyThe Neuroethics of Advertising – Ann L. Whitman (Dana Foundation)https://www.youtube.com/embed/8lQph84492cPanels / DiscussionsDigitally Decoding Brain & BehaviorIn the past decade, the development of devices that collect information passively has given behavioral scientists a new window into human behavior. This opening lecture and panel will explore the potential unintended consequences with this exciting new opportunity.Smartphones Offer an Unprecedented Opportunity to Gather Data for Mental Healthcare, But We Must Confront the Ethical Dilemmas – Interview with session moderator Tom Insel (INS)DBS: Continuity of Self?There is disagreement about whether deep brain stimulation (DBS) causes personality changes, and if so whether such changes generate any cause for concern. This panel will clarify concepts and uncover where there is genuine disagreement regarding facts and values.Does DBS Cause Changes in Personality? – Ann L. Whitman (Dana Foundation)Genetics, Behavior, and SocietyPanelists will describe recent discoveries in sociogenomics, discuss their implications for policy and social action, and contextualize the field of sociogenomics within the broader history of genomics and society.What Neuroethics Can Offer the Genetics of Social Behavior – Interview with session moderator Ariel Cascio (INS)Brain Surrogates: Perceptions and RealityVarious models are now being developed with human brain tissue. This panel will discuss the types of models being developed, the difficult questions raised as advances continue, and the ethical tools needed.Examining the Ethical Use of Brain Surrogates in Research – Ian StevensIntegrating Neuroethics and the Law will be Invaluable as Brain Surrogates Develop – Interview with session moderator Nita Farahany (INS)Meeting ProgramSummariesEthics and Compassion, Key Elements for Addressing Opioid Use Disorder Keith Humphreys began his Keynote Lecture by announcing his envy for people who work on diseases like cholera. If you eliminate cholera, everyone is happy; nobody is left asking for “just a little bit” of cholera on the weekends. The problem with drugs—opioids in particular—is that they are neither simple nor wholly good or bad; we cannot just eliminate them. He contrasts a patient describing the suffering of withdrawal with his own hospice patient describing his fear of the pain of dying, not death itself, a pain that could be relieved by opioids. This dichotomy of patient experiences underlies one of the fundamental contradictions of opioid medications: for one person they may bring despair and misery, while for another person they provide comfort and dignity. This nuance means that no matter what policies are implemented, not everyone will be satisfied. He speaks about 3 initial policy changes that would help those with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) without hurting those who need opioid prescriptions:Removing the “bad apples”—the very few bad doctors who behave badlyNormalizing prescription recycling programsExpanding access to naloxoneMany policies aimed to prevent anyone else from developing an OUD may initially cause increased harm to people who already have OUD. Reformulated opioid medications were developed to prevent misuse; however, for the first 5 years after their implementation there is an overall increase in overdose deaths as many people with OUD shift from prescription opioids to heroin. Although the reformulation initially harms those who already have OUD, it may be necessary to prevent more people developing OUD and we need to focus on prevention.So how can we help people who already have OUD? There are now long-term implantable opiate agonist medications. These implants remove the need to make a daily decision about whether or not to use drugs and address the fluctuating motivation that is seen in addiction. There are complicated ethical issues associated with these longer-lasting treatments: can we make these decisions for our future selves? What should the physician do if a patient changes their mind and requests the physician remove the implant due to a desire to use heroin again?Finally, Humphreys addresses the uncomfortable question: how should we feel about people with addiction? As scientists, we may subscribe to the disease model. Implicit in this description is the claim that people with OUD have a disease ergo cannot be blamed. No one finds this deeply compelling. The disease model is flawed in that it overlooks that fact that the person with OUD is not the only one who has no control over the situation; their family and friends also suffer. The disease model suggests that we should feel sorry for the person with the addiction, but it does not address the people they hurt. Humphreys argues that changing the narrative of how we discuss addiction and blame may help improve empathy and decrease stigma. He reminds us that we are all flawed and that perfection and blamelessness are not required to qualify for compassion. Summary by Tabitha MosesExamining the Ethical Use of Brain Surrogates in Research At the 2018 INS Annual Meeting, an array of neuroscientists, physicians, philosophers, industry leaders, and lawyers , gathered to discuss the potential ethical implications of utilizing organoids as brain surrogates in the neuroscientific research contexts. The panel included Dr. Giorgia Quadrato, Dr. Nenad Sestan, Dr. Laurie Zoloth, and Dr. Khara Ramos, moderated by Dr. Nita Farahany.Dr. Farahany set the tone of the discussion by expanding the ethical discussion to include a number of human brain surrogates—including human brain organoids, ex vivo brain tissue, and chimeras—to help neuroscientist better understand the human brain in certain pathological states. While each model may seem distinct, what these brain organoid models entail philosophically is still shrouded in what is myth versus fact. To address these possible confusions, this panel brought together scholars from the neuroscientific, governmental, and philosophical communities to sort out these differences and define their implications.Dr. Quadrato started the presentations off by diving into the scientific understanding of human brain organoids as they resemble human brains in both aspects of both functionality and structure. Structurally human brain organoids can develop into specific brain regions with varying tissue cell types. She described that there are currently several kinds human organoids that are created through the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. These organoids can then be induced into certain pathological states to obtain a pragmatic model for research. For example, as the human brain organoids develop, their synaptic connections between neurons will develop at random similar to the pathology of human developmental diseases. This is also unique, because it shows a limitation in human brain organoids being unable to be produced as each will produce different connection, unlike the orderly arrangement of human neural tissue. In practice these organoids have been useful in culture for up to nine months and overtime develop cells responsible for cognitive and sensory function. She highlighted how currently, human brain organoids have developed photoreceptors that after being stimulated by light, will have an increased neural response. However, she parsed, while these cells are “responding” to light they are do not yet have the neural anatomy required to then interpret this sensory information. However, this will be a concern as human brain organoids develop for having this ability will result in differing moral status. Until then, she finished by stating that the current risks seem to outweigh the benefits since these models are important for the future development of treatments for neurodevelopmental diseases due to their genetic components that animal model do not have the ability to resemble. Dr. Sestan expanded on the science by explaining other methods utilized to understand human brain tissue. He explained that the use of organoids as well as other ex vivo tissue where neural cell cultures and slices of fetal and human brains are used to understand pathology. He gave his own experience with the practical use of these various ex vivo techniques when trying to understand the development and causes of microencephaly within fetal brains affected by the Zika virus. He stressed that it is because of the analogous architecture of human brain organoids that within months they were able to understand the mechanism of action of this virus. Interestingly, this architecture not only saved time, but it allowed medications to be tested. They found during testing medications that one pharmacological treatment accelerated the zika pathology without having to involve any patients in this process. Similarly, using these models, he and his colleagues were able to better understand the mechanisms associated with the viability with ischemic cell death over a course of four minutes to hours. They demonstrated the use of genetic expression in these cells and stressed the neuroethical concern of better understanding cell death with ischemic tissue that could help shed light of ethical debates around traumatic brain cases. He, like Dr. Quadrato, emphasized the importance these models, and the lack of empirical harms they have been finding with their use.Dr. Zoloth took the direction of the conversation back into the philosophical domain by presenting on the historically debate around the moral status of this tissue through trying to understand what the tissue represents and what normative values are used to judge them. She cited historical debates around children needing the face of a human in order to obtain the moral status associated with one. She then transitioned to Aristotle and his quest to understand how parts relate to the whole—that is, how a hand relates and is part of the whole human but yet not the human itself. This study of mereology strives to understand how parts relate to a whole being and vise versa. In understanding this relationship in different ways, Dr. Zoloth stressed, the brain can be seen to have different moral statuses. As it is in Buddhism, the brain is just one part of a whole, while in understandings of the human brain as the center of rationality, it now becomes the part that is the whole. This allowed her to then move into the moral status concerns of human brain organoids as parts. She articulated that depending on which parts of the whole we prioritize at the beginning and end of beinghood we will have different entities obtaining moral status. Thus, if we are a brain-centric society where our brains hold the majority of our personhood, how can we begin to treat this tissue ethically? This extends to now, as these tissues are in their basic stages and in the future as they develop to have similar capacities as our current brains. However, in then answering these questions, we run into limitations like the challenges in using deep brain stimulation: how do you measure the intangible notions of identity and personality. She pointed to the challenges in confirming a first-person experience in these tissues and accounting for changes in the neuroanatomy at this small of a level using our understanding of a larger human brain model. She ended in the middle ground of skepticism with these tissues, concluding that until the capacities of these tissues can be confirmed or expanded, there might be duties and responsibilities with having these tissues such as anesthetizing them until proven that they such care is not needed.Finally, Dr. Ramos provided insight into how the National Institutes of Health are overseeing neuroscientific research. It has recently invested $7 million in governmental funds into neuroscientific research. This funding hopes to contribute to the alleviation of suffering from neurological diseases in the world through the development of fundamental knowledge about the nervous system. Included in this mission are also workshops to encourage interdisciplinary discussion between neuroscientists and neuroethicists and funding for neuroethicists specifically. Neuroethics therefore is fundamental part of the BRAIN initiative to help with the development of neuroscientific policies. The Neuroethics Division has recently contributed to the initiative by developing ethical principles that will be published soon in the Journal of Neuroscience. She focused on two principle of these guidelines in her presentation. They were the need to incorporate the public’s concerns about the brain and, secondly, moving novel neuro-innovations into the medical and public sphere with caution. The former this will strive to better understand which aspects of the mind the public is are concerned about as human brain organoids develop, such as memory, self-awareness, or sensation. For there is something about the brain that we identify with and want to protect more than other organs of the body. Allowing the public to engage could result in more transparent and trusted implementation of these tissues. The latter principle will allow growth as each new technology will likely result in different and new ethical principles in which to accommodate for. One example is as deep brain stimulation devices become more autonomous in our brains with the use of artificial intelligence, there may be different ethical considerations that need to be addressed. Dr. Ramos used the example of how human brain organoids also have none uniform ethical oversight around the country. She listed several concerns that the IRB may address daily, without uniform guidance, related to autonomy and stewardship of human brain organoids and ex vivo tissue in the research and clinical spectrums. They could benefit from a clear overarching guide through these ethical principles. She finished her discussion by highlighting the need to balance the risks and benefits that using these surrogates may present. While there may be several scientific benefits in the use of these tissues, there could be other risks and benefits from the societal and personal communities to weight and consider that could alter the further use and development of these surrogates. As the panel reached a conclusion, the discussion focused around not just what these tissues are now, but what they may become in the future. The overall sentiment is that there is relatively little concern about using brain surrogates in research today as they exhibit little similarity with our own brains and researchers are already using animals with comparatively complex nervous systems. The pressing concern seemed to be around what this technology could become and how these types of tissues represent our scientific ability to manipulate the human body. This may concern us since now that we have the power to ‘make’ brains, what is stopping these tissues from fulfilling the tales we thought were only science-fiction over the next twenty years? Similarly, it may be difficult, given the status brains have as bearers of identity, to take a piece of brains without feeling like we are taking a portion of ourselves. Regardless, the science and the ethics will need to develop side by side to gather the information necessary to understand the how best to utilize brain surrogates in future research.Summary by Ian Stevens |
Helen Mayberg is the 2018 Recipient of the Steven E. Hyman Award
News – November 2, 2018
Professor Helen S. Mayberg, M.D., Professor of Neurotherapeutics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, is the winner of the 2018 Steven E. Hyman Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Neuroethics.
Hank Greely, Helen Mayberg and Judy Illes
Professor Mayberg directs Mount Sinai’s Center of Advanced Circuit Therapeutics. She has pioneered the use of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for depression and other mood disorders after other conventional treatments have failed. In addition to her ground-breaking scientific efforts, she has been keenly aware of the ethical challenges DBS raises, in both research and clinical practice, from identifying the people most suited to this technique, to managing the consequences of the intervention to their mental states, to the obligations of researchers to their implanted participants. Professor Mayberg has long been involved with the International Neuroethics Society (INS) and has served on its Board of Directors since 2011.
Dr. Mayberg received her M.D. from the University of Southern California. She trained at the Neurological Institute of New York at Columbia University and was a post-doctoral fellow in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Immediately before joining Mount Sinai in January 2018, Dr. Mayberg was Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Radiology and held the inaugural Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair in Psychiatric Neuroimaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Association of Arts and Sciences.
The INS established the Hyman award in 2016 to recognize people who have helped develop the field of neuroethics and who have contributed to the INS. The past awards have gone to Steven Hyman and (posthumously) to William Safire. The INS President, Immediate Past President, and President-Elect (when there is one) select the recipient.
INS Immediate Past President Judy Illes said, “Helen has served on the Board of the INS since its early days. Her expertise and wisdom have guided the INS to provide a solid foundation for the field of neuroethics.”
Presenting the Award at the INS Annual Meeting in San Diego on Friday, November 2, INS President Hank Greely said, “We are thrilled to present this award to Helen Mayberg. Her insistence on the importance of ethical issues in deep brain stimulation research and practice has been consistent, energetic, and effective. Her service to the INS has been longstanding and deeply useful. On behalf of the Society, I am very happy to present Helen Mayberg with the Steven E. Hyman Award as a token of our respect, admiration, affection, and thanks.”
Receiving the Award, Professor Mayberg said, “It is a real privilege to be recognised in this way. Exploring the social, ethical and legal implications of advances in brain research has never been more important than now, and I hope this Award helps to encourage more people to enter into the dialogue.”
Scientists, Ethicists and Lawyers Tackle Big Questions in Brain Research
Press Release / Invitation To Journalists
Signals from a smartphone can detect changes in cognition, mood and behavior which could transform mental health care. But experts are asking, what are the ethics of collecting information from smartphones? Deep brain stimulation is an effective treatment for psychiatric disorders, but does it alter the patient’s personality? How do advertisers use technology to influence what we buy?
These are just some of the big questions that will be discussed at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the International Neuroethics Society in San Diego, California, November 1-2, 2018.
Neuroethics is an academic discipline that examines the social, legal and ethical implications of developments in brain research.
Journalists and science writers are invited to attend the meeting and may register at no cost.
This conference brings together a diverse group of scholars, scientists, clinicians, and professionals dedicated to the responsible use of advances in brain science. In a lecture on the opioid epidemic, Professor Keith Humphreys from Stanford University (USA) will explain that some people need these drugs but at the same time they kill lots of people. The ethical dilemma is how you balance that risk with legitimate pain relief.
At this meeting world leaders in the field will speak on topics including:
- Digitally decoding brain and behavior – Tom Insel, Mindstrong Health, USA
- Managing neuroinformation, protecting identity – Emily Postan, University of Edinburgh, UK
- Brain surrogates: perception and reality – Nita Farahany, Duke Law School, USA
There will also be a public discussion on ‘My brain made me buy it? The neuroethics of advertising’ on November 1 (5:30–7:00 PM). Neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Marci from Nielsen will talk about the ethical boundaries around advertising techniques as technology and data is increasingly used to understand consumers’ preferences and decision-making.
View the meeting program for a complete schedule of events and list of confirmed speakers.
For further information, contact:
Elaine Snell
Chief Operating Officer
International Neuroethics Society
| 2018 Annual Meeting San Diego, CA, USA November 1-2Smartphones Offer an Unprecedented Opportunity to Gather Data for Mental Healthcare, But We Must Confront the Ethical DilemmasMeeting ProgramPreview / InterviewsSponsorsRegistrationDr. Tom Insel is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and a co-founder and President of Mindstrong Health. He was Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 2002 to 2015. Dr. Insel is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous national and international awards including honorary degrees in the U.S. and Europe. He joined the Board of Directors of the International Neuroethics Society (INS) in 2017.Dr. Insel will deliver the opening lecture November 1 at the 2018 INS Annual Meeting.What is Mindstrong Health?Mindstrong Health is a start-up that develops tools to transform mental healthcare. We need to manage mental health better than we currently do, and better measurement can help us do that. Our hope is that technology-enabled care will reduce suicide, prevent psychosis, and lead to recovery from severe mental illness and addiction.  How did you become interested and involved in neuroethics?One solution we at Mindstrong Health are developing is digital phenotyping whereby signals from a smartphone can detect changes in cognition, mood and behaviour. Digital phenotyping collects objective measures passively and continuously as people use their phones. We may have an unprecedented opportunity to improve global mental health because nearly three billion people around the world use smartphones. They are more ubiquitous than clean water or indoor plumbing. And people use their phones intensively, even compulsively. The ethics of collecting data from smartphones, therefore, is a major issue if this approach is to succeed. We are concerned about protecting privacy, giving people agency over data, and providing transparency for how digital phenotyping takes place.Why is neuroethics important in neurotechnological developments?When we develop any new technology, we need to find the right balance between benefit and risk. If we don’t manage these aspects upfront and build the public’s trust we won’t be able to get the full benefits of neurotechnology.We need members of the INS to help us find the right pathway for developing tools like digital phenotyping. Right now, there is no regulatory framework and there are no industry guidelines. So the neuroethics community could have a significant influence on how the field develops. Many of us in both companies and academia are trying to figure this out. Together we should engage these ethical concerns including consideration of the unintended consequences of using the smartphone for collecting personal data even when that data could contribute to reducing suicide or preventing psychosis.What will you be talking about in your lecture?I will focus on both the benefits and risks of digital phenotyping, at least as we know about these issues in 2018. I want to challenge delegates to think about finding the right balance between benefits and risks, when neither is completely known. But really my lecture will be the appetizer; the main course will be a panel on this same topic with experts from tech, ethics, psychiatry, and computer science.What aspects of the annual meeting are you excited about?We are in a moment in time when the public is losing trust in people who are experts. So one of the things we all need to think about is how to communicate more effectively about the value of what we do, even when the issues are complex and not amenable to a tweet or soundbite. The INS Annual Meeting is a good forum in which to do this.Also, I am one of the few INS members attending from the private sector. The application of neuroscience in the private sector is increasing rapidly, with many neuroscientists now choosing to work in technology companies. I am excited to engage this generation of neuroscientists who have left academia to use this meeting to learn about neuroethics.Why should people attend the 2018 INS Annual Meeting?It’s the one forum where we discuss the broad ethical implications of cutting edge neuroscience. ###Discounted registration rates available until September 20.Registration |
Smartphones Offer an Unprecedented Opportunity to Gather Data for Mental Healthcare, But We Must Confront the Ethical Dilemmas
Dr. Tom Insel is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and a co-founder and President of Mindstrong Health. He was Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 2002 to 2015. Dr. Insel is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous national and international awards including honorary degrees in the U.S. and Europe. He joined the Board of Directors of the International Neuroethics Society (INS) in 2017.
Dr. Insel will deliver the opening lecture November 1 at the 2018 INS Annual Meeting.
What is Mindstrong Health?
Mindstrong Health is a start-up that develops tools to transform mental healthcare. We need to manage mental health better than we currently do, and better measurement can help us do that. Our hope is that technology-enabled care will reduce suicide, prevent psychosis, and lead to recovery from severe mental illness and addiction.
How did you become interested and involved in neuroethics?
One solution we at Mindstrong Health are developing is digital phenotyping whereby signals from a smartphone can detect changes in cognition, mood and behaviour. Digital phenotyping collects objective measures passively and continuously as people use their phones. We may have an unprecedented opportunity to improve global mental health because nearly three billion people around the world use smartphones. They are more ubiquitous than clean water or indoor plumbing. And people use their phones intensively, even compulsively. The ethics of collecting data from smartphones, therefore, is a major issue if this approach is to succeed. We are concerned about protecting privacy, giving people agency over data, and providing transparency for how digital phenotyping takes place.
Why is neuroethics important in neurotechnological developments?
When we develop any new technology, we need to find the right balance between benefit and risk. If we don’t manage these aspects upfront and build the public’s trust we won’t be able to get the full benefits of neurotechnology.
We need members of the INS to help us find the right pathway for developing tools like digital phenotyping. Right now, there is no regulatory framework and there are no industry guidelines. So the neuroethics community could have a significant influence on how the field develops. Many of us in both companies and academia are trying to figure this out. Together we should engage these ethical concerns including consideration of the unintended consequences of using the smartphone for collecting personal data even when that data could contribute to reducing suicide or preventing psychosis.
What will you be talking about in your lecture?
I will focus on both the benefits and risks of digital phenotyping, at least as we know about these issues in 2018. I want to challenge delegates to think about finding the right balance between benefits and risks, when neither is completely known. But really my lecture will be the appetizer; the main course will be a panel on this same topic with experts from tech, ethics, psychiatry, and computer science.
What aspects of the annual meeting are you excited about?
We are in a moment in time when the public is losing trust in people who are experts. So one of the things we all need to think about is how to communicate more effectively about the value of what we do, even when the issues are complex and not amenable to a tweet or soundbite. The INS Annual Meeting is a good forum in which to do this.
Also, I am one of the few INS members attending from the private sector. The application of neuroscience in the private sector is increasing rapidly, with many neuroscientists now choosing to work in technology companies. I am excited to engage this generation of neuroscientists who have left academia to use this meeting to learn about neuroethics.
Why should people attend the 2018 INS Annual Meeting?
It’s the one forum where we discuss the broad ethical implications of cutting edge neuroscience.
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Discounted registration rates available until September 20.
Registration
Could Neurotechnology Change How We Define Ourselves?
Dr. Emily Postan is an Early Career Fellow in Bioethics at Edinburgh School of Law, a researcher on the Wellcome Trust project ‘Liminal Spaces in Health Research Regulation,’ and a Deputy Director of the J Kenyon Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Science and the Law. With a background in philosophy and policy management, her research is in interdisciplinary bioethics.
Dr. Postan is giving the Rising Star Lecture titled ‘Managing Neuroinformation, Protecting Identity’ on November 1 at the 2018 INS Annual Meeting in San Diego.
What is your field of research?
I am still building on ideas I worked on during my PhD. If, as seems plausible to me, we constitute our identities through the stories—the narratives—we tell about ourselves, then it seems more than likely that information about our bodies, including our brains, could contribute to these narratives. I am interested in the ways that information about our bodies, for example, from brain imaging, health wearables, or implanted diagnostics, could impact—for better or worse—how we make sense of ourselves and navigate our lived experiences, values and relationships.
What dangers and opportunities do you foresee in acquiring information using neurotechnology?
Privacy, how other people will use this information, is usually the big concern raised here. But I think it’s just as important that we look at our own access to this information, and how we ourselves use it. For example, is it problematic if this information causes us to second-guess our lived experiences? However, it’s also worth revisiting how this information could be useful, not as defining our inevitable destiny, but rather as a tool for interpreting our place in the world and our autobiographies.
What got you interested in neurotechnology and ethics?
After leaving university I worked in policy management for the Scottish Government. Then I did a Masters at Edinburgh University and during that time, Hank Greely gave a lecture on neuroimaging and the law which was fascinating and helped me to work out what I’d want to focus on if I pursued bioethics further. A few years later in 2013, I managed the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on ‘Novel Neurotechnologies: Intervening in the brain’, alongside Ilina Singh, which offered the enormous privilege and delight of working with people at the top of their fields, not only ethicists, but social scientists, scientists and clinicians.
What will your lecture be about?
The big question is: how should we govern the sheer mass of neuro-data generated by cutting edge neuroscience? Within that, I will address the question of how we ought to manage disclosure of this information to the individuals it came from, and what interests we need to protect when doing so. I’ll explore the various roles that neuro-information from wearables or diagnostic neuroimaging or and brain-computer interface devices could play in their self-narratives and why these roles matter from an ethical point of view: why we should care about the identity impacts of these kinds of neuro-information.
What appealed to you about giving the Rising Star lecture?
It was that I would have the privilege of attending a meeting that was high-profile, yet small enough to connect with the right people, to have the opportunity to address them and learn from them. I am looking forward to the opportunity to address an audience that includes clinicians and researchers, including students in training. What could be more exciting than communicating our own developing ideas to the very people who might be able to engage with these in their future practice and in forming their own ideas?
How can the bioethics and neuroethics communities work more collaboratively?
When we did the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report, we were constantly walking a line where we didn’t want to fall into treating the brain as if it had unique, exceptional ethical importance. But also we didn’t want to relinquish the strong sense in which the significance of the brain—given its intimate connection with the mind—is ‘not nothing’. I think neuroethics also walks this line and the validity of this balancing act is evidenced by the fact that neuroethics has endured in ways that, for example, genethics has not. I think it can only be fruitful for neuroethics and bioethics communities to work together.
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Online registration available until October 25.
Registration
Addiction and Policy Expert is Taking a Crash Course in Neuroscience
Professor Keith Humphreys is the Esther Ting Memorial Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in California. He is also a Senior Research Career Scientist at the VA Health Services Research Center in Palo Alto and an Honorary Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College in London. Professor Humphreys has served as a member of the White House Commission on Drug Free Communities, and the National Advisory Council of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Professor Humphreys will deliver the Fred Kavli Distinguished Neuroethics Lecture, featuring ‘Values, science, and public policy towards the opioid epidemic,’ at the 2018 INS Annual Meeting.
What is your field of research?
I work on the neuroscience and clinical management of addiction, especially to opioids and alcohol, and in developing public policy with British Members of Parliament and U.S. Congress to translate what we’ve learned in the science of addiction into policies to help individuals and their families facing those conditions.
Why is addiction to and overdose from opioids the worst epidemic the United States has faced for many decades?
It started with under-regulation of companies that produce opioids. They were aggressively selling opioids to physicians that were later found to be highly addictive and abusable. From mid 1990s opioids were prescribed more than five times per capita in the United States and Canada than in European countries. Then there was a revival of heroin as so many people switched from prescribed drugs to heroin bought on the street.
What is the significance of the differences between the people involved in medical research and those seen in routine clinical practice?
Medicines are developed but clinicians don’t use them. Clinicians don’t trust clinical trials because in real life, patients have more than one illness. In clinical trials, people with only one condition are studied, meaning that someone addicted to cocaine cannot take part in a clinical trial if they are, for example, alcoholic or depressed as well. That’s not real life.
What are the ethical issues associated with the science that informs health policy?
The people for whom public policy is the most important are those who are most vulnerable. If you are healthy and wealthy, it doesn’t matter much what the policy says, but if you are ill or poor or you have a hard life, it matters. A scientist who engages in political policy may be motivated to advance his or her political views, and there is a risk they will lose sight of objective research. We need to understand the limits of our expertise and what obligations we have to science when we venture into the political arena.
What will your lecture cover?
I will focus on the opioid epidemic. The basic dilemma is an ethical one. For example, cholera is a solvable problem: you clean up the water and no one misses the cholera. But a world without opioids would be a miserable world. Some people need these drugs but at the same time they kill lots of people. How do you balance that risk with legitimate pain relief?
What appealed to you about speaking at the INS annual meeting?
I’ve never been to the INS meeting before so my interest in it comes from 20 years of clinical research into addiction and policy work. Then about four years ago, neuroscience came into my life. I developed collaborative neuroscience projects looking into addiction with experts like Rob Malenka and Brian Knutson which provided a new perspective into my clinical endeavours and how to talk to policy makers. I’m taking a crash course in neuroscience! This meeting will enable me to talk with neuroscientists, neurologists, lawyers and philosophers. And I can help neuroscientists understand policy. Politics sometimes seems irrational and crazy, but I can explain how it can actually make sense.
What do you and your colleagues in addiction disorders need from the neuroethics community?
There are a lot of issues to explain to the public about how to think about moral issues like how we understand self-control and responsibility, and how we should have compassion for people who are impaired by addiction. It is easy to think that people should just stop taking heroin, and if they had strength of character, they would. But after taking opioids repeatedly, the brain changes. Telling people to stop is like telling someone who has just walked through a desert not to drink ice cold water: it’s possible for them but it’s way, way, harder than it is for you. The neuroethics community is in a good position to make the case for medical treatment and getting addicts back into family life to function well in society.
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Online registration available through October 25.
Registration
What Neuroethics Can Offer the Genetics of Social Behavior
Dr. Ariel Cascio is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit (formerly known as the Neuroethics Research Unit) at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal whose research focuses on ethics and neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, helping to empower people with autism to participate in research. Dr. Cascio’s dissertation research was on autism-specific services for adolescents and adults on the spectrum in Italy.
Dr. Cascio is co-chair of the Program Committee of the INS Annual Meeting in San Diego, and will chair a panel discussion on Genetics, Society and Behavior.
What is your field of research?
I was trained as anthropologist and now I am working at the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) in Canada. I have been there for two years and I am closely involved with the neuroethics community. I am investigating the ethical and social issues associated with conditions such as autism. Working with stakeholders—and that includes people with autism—currently my major project is to develop guidelines on person-oriented research ethics for people with autism.
What got you interested in neuroethics?
I had seen a lot of work on neuroethics especially around the brain and identity, and how neuroscience research and language is used in health advocacy. I was interested in how people with autism talk about their everyday lives. The pragmatic neuroethics approach of Dr. Eric Racine appealed to me for its focus on centring the experience of people living with a neurodevelopmental diagnosis.
Why are you involved with the INS?
The INS is a great way to be connected with neuroethics across this continent and the rest of the world, both face-to-face and through the communities and via the INS newsletter. I get to see other people’s research. It’s good to have a supportive and intellectual community.
What will the session cover that you are chairing?
‘Genetics, Behavior, and Society’—some people call it sociogenomics, which means the genetic study of social behaviors that include IQ, educational attainment, and reproductive behaviour. There are large scale studies into sociogenomics which raise a number of questions. Therefore, we have invited speakers from the genetics research field and also from the neuroethics community to reflect on the science and the ethical implications of the results and even how the questions were constructed in the first place.
Describe the challenge for you as co-chair of the Program Committee for the INS Annual Meeting.
Taking on the role of co-chair of the Program Committee is big responsibility. With the Committee we discuss and organise what each panel will talk about, and we have a process for selecting the speakers and abstracts. We also work with partners for the public program. As for the topics, well, we are spoilt for choice! The INS is interdisciplinary so one thing we are trying to do is to have a diverse panel of perspectives to promote the conversation and move it forward. It’s too easy to have one perspective amongst a panel of speakers, so the challenge is to present differing views.
What parts of the annual meeting are you excited about?
I am excited about the poster sessions. We have created more opportunities during the annual meeting for people to view posters and speak to the authors. I am looking forward to seeing the range of research being presented and especially what junior and emerging scholars are doing.
Why should people attend the INS Annual Meeting?
People should attend for the chance to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations. In San Diego, they will be able to meet new and old colleagues. Most importantly, we will all be challenged to think outside the box, beyond what we do day to day.
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Online registration available through October 25.
Registration
What Neuroethics Can Offer the Genetics of Social Behavior
Dr. Ariel Cascio is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit (formerly known as the Neuroethics Research Unit) at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal whose research focuses on ethics and neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, helping to empower people with autism to participate in research. Dr. Cascio’s dissertation research was on autism-specific services for adolescents and adults on the spectrum in Italy.
Dr. Cascio is co-chair of the Program Committee of the INS Annual Meeting in San Diego, and will chair a panel discussion on Genetics, Society and Behavior.
What is your field of research?
I was trained as anthropologist and now I am working at the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) in Canada. I have been there for two years and I am closely involved with the neuroethics community. I am investigating the ethical and social issues associated with conditions such as autism. Working with stakeholders—and that includes people with autism—currently my major project is to develop guidelines on person-oriented research ethics for people with autism.
What got you interested in neuroethics?
I had seen a lot of work on neuroethics especially around the brain and identity, and how neuroscience research and language is used in health advocacy. I was interested in how people with autism talk about their everyday lives. The pragmatic neuroethics approach of Dr. Eric Racine appealed to me for its focus on centring the experience of people living with a neurodevelopmental diagnosis.
Why are you involved with the INS?
The INS is a great way to be connected with neuroethics across this continent and the rest of the world, both face-to-face and through the communities and via the INS newsletter. I get to see other people’s research. It’s good to have a supportive and intellectual community.
What will the session cover that you are chairing?
‘Genetics, Behavior, and Society’—some people call it sociogenomics, which means the genetic study of social behaviors that include IQ, educational attainment, and reproductive behaviour. There are large scale studies into sociogenomics which raise a number of questions. Therefore, we have invited speakers from the genetics research field and also from the neuroethics community to reflect on the science and the ethical implications of the results and even how the questions were constructed in the first place.
Describe the challenge for you as co-chair of the Program Committee for the INS Annual Meeting.
Taking on the role of co-chair of the Program Committee is big responsibility. With the Committee we discuss and organise what each panel will talk about, and we have a process for selecting the speakers and abstracts. We also work with partners for the public program. As for the topics, well, we are spoilt for choice! The INS is interdisciplinary so one thing we are trying to do is to have a diverse panel of perspectives to promote the conversation and move it forward. It’s too easy to have one perspective amongst a panel of speakers, so the challenge is to present differing views.
What parts of the annual meeting are you excited about?
I am excited about the poster sessions. We have created more opportunities during the annual meeting for people to view posters and speak to the authors. I am looking forward to seeing the range of research being presented and especially what junior and emerging scholars are doing.
Why should people attend the INS Annual Meeting?
People should attend for the chance to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations. In San Diego, they will be able to meet new and old colleagues. Most importantly, we will all be challenged to think outside the box, beyond what we do day to day.
###
Online registration available through October 25.
Registration
Integrating Neuroethics and the Law will be Invaluable as Brain Surrogates Develop
Professor Nita Farahany is a leading scholar on the ethical, legal, and social implications of biosciences and emerging technologies. She is the Director of Duke Science & Society, and Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Professor Farahany is a member of the Board of the INS.
Professor Farahany will moderate a panel discussion on ‘Brain Surrogates: Perceptions and Reality’ at the 2018 INS Annual Meeting in San Diego.
What is your field of research?
I study the ethical and legal implications of emerging technologies, focusing on neuroscience, biosciences, and an interest in intelligent systems, virtual reality, and blockchain.
How did you become interested in neuroethics in context with law?
I stumbled upon it in a class I was taking on behavioural genetics—the role of behavioural sciences in the criminal law. This piqued my curiosity as I had long been passionate about science and the law, and this was an intriguing intersection that implicated philosophy, law, and science all together. My doctoral dissertation analysed the issue of criminal responsibility through the lens of behavioural genetics and neuroscience in the criminal justice system. From there the issues in neuroscience, law, and philosophy continued to intrigue me.
Why are you involved with the INS?
The INS is an important organization that has a community of individuals with a passion for helping to integrate science with the social and legal implications associated with it. The INS is an invaluable resource for me and has the potential to serve as an increasingly important resource for society as advances in neuroscience continue. I am committed to bringing greater democratic deliberation to emerging ethical and social implications of neuroscience and believe that INS can serve an important function in doing so.
What is the panel discussion on Brain Surrogates: Perceptions and Reality about?
New models using human brain tissue are being developed that are creating better proxies—or representations—of the human brain, that could help us better understand, diagnose, and ultimate treat neurological disorders in humans. But paradoxically, the better the proxies that will be developed, the more challenging the ethical issues become. So this panel will help to seed more deliberation about those issues. The panellists will present the state-of-the-art in brain surrogates and discuss some of the complex legal and ethical issues in this growing body of research.
What are the ethical aspects of this kind of technology?
The most challenging—but more distant aspect—is the capacity for the surrogate to develop sentience-like capabilities. As we approach that possibility, we may need a paradigm shift in how we regard brain surrogates and the protections that should result.
What parts of the Annual Meeting are you excited about?
All if it! The focus on ‘Cutting Edge Neuroscience, Cutting Edge Neuroethics’ will move many of conversations forward and introduce new concepts. It will drive the interest of our members and delegates in the issues on the horizon. They will be part of a series of conversations on what the next big issues are that we need to be tackling in the field and in society.
Why should people attend the INS Annual Meeting?
Three reasons. First, it’s the opportunity to connect with a diverse set of people with common passion. Second, the substance of the meeting is exciting. It is attracting leaders and new interests in the field. Engaging at highest level will be of great benefit to everyone. And finally, the mission of INS is an important one for people to support. There is a rapid growth in neuroethics, and the INS is a supporting organization that people who care can contribute to and help to grow.
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Online registration available through October 25.