The Dawn of Highly Portable AI-Enabled MRI Research in the Community: Proactively Addressing ELSI Challenges

Neuroethics 2025
Schedule
Registration

This interactive session will explore the ethical, legal, and societal implications (ELSI) of highly portable AI-enabled MRI technologies (pMRI). Discussion will examine four areas, including: the ethics of pMRI research with indigenous communities; the ethics of pMRI research in low-resource countries; the promise and ethical concerns of pMRI for making MRI research participation more accessible for people of low socioeconomic status (SES); and critical ethical issues surrounding data sharing across large multinational imaging platforms.

Speakers:

  • Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD, Professor, University of Minnesota Law School, Faculty Member, MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (moderator, in-person)
  • Judy Illes, CM, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (panelist, in-person)
  • Olivia Matshabane, PhD, Research Psychologist and Neuroethics Researcher, Department of Psychiatry, Stellenbosch University (panelist, in-person)
  • Martha J. Farah, PhD, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in Natural Sciences; Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania (panelist, in-person)
  • Linda Chaabane, PhD, Section Director of Euro-BioImaging Med-Hub (panelist, virtual)

Agenda

  1. Introduction / 5 minutes
  2. Audience exercise / 5 minutes
  3. Speaker presentations / 20 minutes
  4. Lessons learned / 10 minutes
  5. Visioning exercise / 15 minutes
  6. Conclusion / 5 minutes

Attend

Neuroethics 2025
Thursday, April 24, 2025
1:15-2:15pm CEST
Library

This discussion is being held as part of Neuroethics 2025, the joint annual meeting of the International Neuroethics Society (INS) and Società Italiana di Neuroetica (SINe). Register for the conference to see this session in-person in Munich or to participate virtually. Virtual participants can watch the live broadcast and submit questions to the discussion. All registrants get access to the recordings before the general public.

Registration

Description

Format

This interactive session will explore the ethical, legal, and societal implications (ELSI) of highly portable AI-enabled MRI technologies (pMRI). Neuroimaging research has traditionally required participants to travel to hospitals or academic research facilities. Now the scanner will travel to them. The emergence of pMRI, including build-it-yourself systems, will disrupt this traditional paradigm and facilitate scanning in the community. Scanning in a community center or high school gym will improve access, but also raises many ELSI concerns.

Topics, issues themes and speakers

The panel will reach many of the core ELSI challenges associated with field-based research with portable MRI, including: pMRI utilization of AI, IRB oversight, quality control, community engagement, privacy, safety, incidental findings, return of results, and data management (Shen et al 2024).

We will deep-dive on four critical areas. First, neuroethicist Judy Illes will discuss the ethics of pMRI research with indigenous communities. Second, neuroethicist Olivia Matshabane will discuss the ethics of pMRI research in low-resource countries. Third, neuroscientist Martha Farah will discuss the promise and ethical concerns of pMRI for making MRI research participation more accessible for people of low socioeconomic status (SES). Fourth, Linda Chaabane, Section Director of EuroBioImaging, will discuss critical ethical issues surrounding data sharing across large multinational imaging platforms.

The moderator and panelists provide complementary perspectives from law, ethics, and neuroscience. The panel offers international, gender and racial diversity, as well as diversity in career stage of the participants.

Importance

This would be the first INS session on pMRI, and the timing is excellent: it is crucial to proactively address the neuroethics challenges now—before widespread deployment. Development of solutions to pMRI ELSI challenges will guide and optimize development and deployment of this important set of new technologies by researchers and clinicians.

Goals

The goals of this session are to: (1) Promote discussion amongst INS conference participants on the ethics of pMRI research and clinical use; (2) Generate feedback on key findings from recently published recommendations from an interdisciplinary Working Group, supported by an NIH BRAIN Neuroethics grant (NIH RF1MH123698); and (3) Build cross-national partnerships to further investigate ELSI challenges associated with pMRI research.

Resources

Readings

References

  1. Shen, F.X., Wolf, S.M., Lawrenz, F., Comeau, D.S., Dzirasa, K., Evans, B.J., Fair, D., Farah, M.J., Han, S.D., Illes, J. and Jackson, J.D., 2024. Ethical, legal, and policy challenges in field-based neuroimaging research using emerging portable MRI technologies: guidance for investigators and for oversight. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 11(1).
  2. Ravi, K. S., & Geethanath, S. (2020). Autonomous magnetic resonance imaging. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 73, 177-185.
  3. Anazodo, U. C., Ng, J. J., Ehiogu, B., Obungoloch, J., Fatade, A., Mutsaerts, H. J., … & Consortium for Advancement of MRI Education and Research in Africa (CAMERA). (2023). A framework for advancing sustainable magnetic resonance imaging access in Africa. NMR in Biomedicine, 36(3), e4846.
  4. Matshabane, O. P., Mgweba-Bewana, L., Atuire, C. A., de Vries, J., & Koehly, L. M. (2022). Cultural diversity is crucial for African neuroethics. Nature human behaviour, 6(9), 1185-1187.
  5. S. Birly, A. Teeple and J. Illes, “The Realization of Portable MRI for Indigenous Communities in the USA and Canada,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics __, no. __ (forthcoming): __-__.
  6. M. Farah, “Socioeconomic Factors in Brain Research: Increasing Sample Representativeness with Portable MRI,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics __, no. __ (forthcoming): __-__.
  7. F.X. Shen et al., “Conducting Research with Highly Portable MRI in Community Settings: A Practical Guide to Navigating Ethical Issues and ELSI Checklist,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics __, no. __ (forthcoming): __-__.

Keywords: portable MRI, neuroimaging, artificial intelligence, research ethics, regulation, equity, access, ELSI, community engagement, Indigenous research, international, privacy

Speakers

Francis Shen

University of Minnesota

Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD is a Professor of Law, Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow, and Faculty Member of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Shen Neurolaw Lab, whose motto is, “Every story is a brain story”. He is also Chief Innovation Officer for the MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB) in MGH Department of Psychiatry; founding director of the Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience & Society; and Co-Director of the Neurotech Justice Accelerator at Mass General Brigham, a Dana Center Initiative. He also co-leads NIH BRAIN Initiative funded projects on portable MRI, and community engagement in neuroimaging research. Dr. Shen has co-authored 4 books, including the first Law and Neuroscience casebook and Brain Science for Lawyers, Judges, and Policymakers (2024). He has published articles on a range of neurolaw and neuroethics topics, including computational phenotyping, portable neuroimaging, memory and lie detection, cognitive enhancement, criminal justice, brain injury, evidentiary admissibility, sports concussion, juror decision-making, criminal mental states, dementia, and mental health. In 2021, he was awarded the Early Career Scholars Medal by the American Law Institute, one of two medals awarded every other year by the ALI, for being “a pioneer in establishing the interdisciplinary field of law and neuroscience.” He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago, his JD from Harvard Law School, and his PhD from the Harvard University.

Judy Illes

University of British Columbia

Judy Illes, PhD, is Professor of Neurology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), UBC Distinguished University Scholar, and Director of Neuroethics Canada. Dr. Illes is a pioneer in the field of neuroethics. Her research, teaching, and outreach initiatives are devoted to ethical, legal, social, and policy challenges at the intersection of the brain sciences and biomedical ethics. She has made groundbreaking contributions to neuroethical thinking for neuroscience discovery and clinical translation across the life span. Dr. Illes was awarded the Order of Canada, the country’s highest recognition of its citizens, in 2017.

Olivia Matshabane

Stellenbosch University

Dr. Olivia Matshabane is a research psychologist and neuroethics researcher. Her work focuses on the ethical, legal, social, and cultural implications of neuropsychiatric genomics and the neuroethical implications of new and emerging neurotechnologies. She is the Principal Investigator on an African Academy of Sciences and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seed grant focussed on neuroethics in Africa. She earned her PhD in Medicine from the University of Cape Town (UCT), her Master’s and Honours degrees in Psychology from Stellenbosch University (SU), and her Bachelors in Psychology from the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. Before joining the SAMRC Genomics of Brain Disorders Unit in the Department of Psychiatry at SU, she completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, where her work used social network analysis to investigate family communication patterns and stigma among families affected by a genomics-related neuropsychiatric disorder. Dr Matshabane is a member of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) Africa Working Group leadership committee. She is also the South Africa representative in the African Brain Data Network (ABDN) and the International Neuroethics Society (INS) representative to the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). She is a member of the International Brain Initiative’s (IBI) Cross-Cultural Neuroscience Working Group and she is also one of the 24 international expert scientists tasked to develop a recommendation on ethics of neurotechnology by UNESCO. Dr Matshabane also supervises postgraduate students in the Department.​​

Martha Farah

University of Pennsylvania

Martha J. Farah, PhD, is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Center for Neuroscience and Society. Farah’s research focuses on several issues at the interface of neuroscience and society, including the ethical, legal and social impact of neuroscience, or neuroethics, the ways in which neuroscience is changing the way we think of ourselves as physical, mental, moral, and spiritual beings, the expanding use of neuropsychiatric medications by healthy people for brain enhancement, and the effects of childhood poverty on brain development. Farah has received widespread recognition for her work including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Academy of Science’s Troland Research Award and the Association for Psychological Science’s lifetime achievement award as well as her American Academy of Arts and Sciences membership. She is also a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Linda Chaabane

Euro-BioImaging

Linda Chaabane, PhD is the Section Director for the Euro-BioImaging Med-Hub. In this role, Dr. Chaabane prepares and implements Euro-BioImaging ERIC tasks as part of the Directorate. She leads a team to coordinate and operate the pan-European research infrastructure services for biomedical imaging in Euro-BioImaging. After a master in Physics at the University of Lyon in France, she conducted her PhD in biomedical engineering that drives her to develop her career in Magnetic Resonance imaging field to investigate various human diseases at preclinical level and in clinical settings. She represents the interests of the biomedical imaging community within Euro-BioImaging ERIC and promotes the research infrastructure at the national and international level.

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