"Extending Our View on Using BCIs for Locked-in Syndrome"

Extending Our View on Using BCIs for Locked-in Syndrome is now available for free download in the current issue of Neuroethics:

Andrew Fenton^{1, 2} and Sheri Alpert^{1, 2}

(1)	Novel Tech Ethics, Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

(2)	Novel Tech Ethics, Intellectual Commons, Dalhousie University, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, NS, B3H 3P7, Canada

Abstract:  Locked-in syndrome (LIS) is a severe neurological condition that typically leaves a patient unable to move, talk and, in many cases, initiate communication. Brain Computer Interfaces (or BCIs) promise to enable individuals with conditions like LIS to re-engage with their physical and social worlds. In this paper we will use extended mind theory to offer a way of seeing the potential of BCIs when attached to, or implanted in, individuals with LIS. In particular, we will contend that functionally integrated BCIs extend the minds of individuals with LIS beyond their bodies, allowing them greater autonomy than they can typically hope for in living with their condition. This raises important philosophical questions about the implications of BCI technology, particularly the potential to change selves, and ethical questions about whether society has a responsibility to aid these individuals in re-engaging with their physical and social worlds. It also raises some important questions about when these interventions should be offered to individuals with LIS and respecting the rights of these individuals to refuse intervention. By aiding willing individuals in re-engaging with their physical and social worlds, BCIs open up avenues of opportunity taken for granted by able individuals and introduce new ways in which these individuals can be harmed. These latter considerations serve to highlight our emergent social responsibilities to those individuals who will be suitable for, and receive, BCIs.

Comments

[Anibal]

I think this is an interesting article.
Any development beyond or current frameworks to see things anew is always welcome.
But i would like to play the role of the devil´s advocate.

The extended mind hypothesis derived from embodied or embeded cognition theories which in a nutshell, say, intelligence depends on the body, and its use as an heuristic to rethink the way neurotechnology can be used in some disorders of conciousness seems a little contradictory when aplied to lock-in-syndrome: the body is still, so, the qualia cannot be generated by the sensoriomotor feedback of the embodied mind in relation to the enviroment.

Is not this disorder, lock-in-syndrome, a case that recognize the prominent role of the brain "within the skull" and not "out of the skull" to think about what is consciousness?