Neuroethics & Law Blog

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article(s): Call for Proposals, Center for Cognition and Neuroethics In The Popular Press: How Meditation, Placebos and Virtual Reality Help Power 'Mind Over Body', NPR Digital Intuition, Nature Magazine Scientists Move Closer to Understanding Schizophrenia’s Cause, New York Times Dog DNA Probed For Clues to Human Psychiatric Ills, Nature News The Neurologist Who Hacked His Brain—and Almost Lost His Mind, Wired Magazine More Evidence Emerges for 'Transmissible Alzheimer's' Theory, Nature News Brain Implant Will Connect a Million Neurons with Superfast Bandwidth, Future Timeline 77 Hours of Confusion, 14 Minutes of Joy: A Neuroscientist Quantifies the Mundane Beauty of Our Lives, Quartz What If: Your Brain Confesses?, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Consumer Neuroscience vs. Skepticism: An Inside Look at the Challenges of a Novel Field, The Neuroethics Blog Monkeys Genetically Modified to Show Autism Symptoms, Nature News Next Big Test for AI: Making Sense of the World, MIT Technology Review A New AI Can Write Convincing Political Speeches, Gizmodo “Cat-Gras Delusion” – The Man Who Saw His Cat as an Impostor, Discover Magazine A Video Game-Maker that Promises to Treat ADHD Just Won $30 Million in Funding, Quartz How One Intelligent Machine Learned to Recognize Human Emotions, MIT Technology Review This is What Happens When You Let a Neural Network Design Fonts, Gizmodo Is There Something Unique about the Transgender Brain?, Scientific American Bipolar Treatment: Genetics Change People's Response to Lithium, Study Finds, Australian Broadcasting Corporation In the Academic Literature: Performance Enablement and Self-Transformative Technologies, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics Membrane Potential Shapes Regulation of Dopamine Transporter Trafficking at the Plasma Membrane, Nature Magazine Brain Size Predicts Problem-Solving Ability in Mammalian Carnivores, PNAS Why I Tense Up When You Watch Me: Inferior Parietal Cortex Mediates an Audience’s Influence on Motor Performance, Scientific Reports

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

More Progress on Memory Editing

Propranolol may be making a comeback (if it ever went away), particularly for the treatment of phobias and PTSD. See discussion here. 

Important Genetic Discovery in Schizophrenia Research

Big news here.

Potential Barriers to Valid Consent to DBS in Anorexia Nervosa (Guest Post: Jonathan Pugh)

In my previous post, I described how recent studies have suggested that Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) could be used to ameliorate the condition of patients suffering from treatment-refractory anorexia nervosa (AN). In this post, I shall consider two barriers that clinicians might face to obtaining valid informed consent to this procedure. This is an important question to consider, since the current consensus is that DBS should only be carried out with the valid informed consent of the patient, given the risky nature of the procedure, and its experimental nature in the context of anorexia nervosa.

"A Reason To Be Free"

"A Reason To Be Free" by Giulio Mecacci and Pim Haselager has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Recent Libet-style experiments are of limited relevance to the debate about free action and free will, and should be understood as investigations of arbitrary actions or guesses. In Libet-style experiments, the concept of 'free action' is commonly taken to refer to a 'self-initiated voluntary act', where the self prompts an action without being prompted. However, this idea is based on the problematic assumption that the conscious self needs to be free from every constraint in order to be actually free. We maintain that a fundamental condition for free action is the presence of reasons to act responsibly. By analyzing a recent neuroscientific experiment, we indicate how its results could be interpreted as indicating how free action operationalization is inappropriately focusing on arbitrary actions. Hence, the way free action has been experimentally studied may have had a misleading influence on the debate about free will.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article(s): A Neuroscientist Says There’s a Powerful Benefit to Exercise that is Rarely Discussed, Quartz In The Popular Press: Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies, Mosaic The US Military Wants a Chip to Translate Your Brain Activity into Binary Code, Gizmodo A Neural Response to “Trigger” Stimuli in PTSD?, Discover Magazine Head Transplant Carried Out on Monkey, Claims Maverick Surgeon, New Scientist Childhood Poverty Linked to Brain Changes Related to Depression, Medical News Today Dissolvable Devices Keep Tabs on the Brain, Discover Magazine Humans Aren’t the Only Species That Trusts, Quartz GoPro for Mouse Brains Records Neural Circuits in Real Time, Gizmodo Bird Brains: Smarter Than We Thought, New York Times Integration without Reduction: What the Philosophy of Empathy Can Learn From Mirror Neurons, The Neuroethics Blog Call for Proposals, Center for Cognition and Neuroethics F.T.C.’s Lumosity Penalty Doesn’t End Brain Training Debate, New York Times For Teenagers, Adult-Sized Opioid Addiction Treatment Doesn't Fit, NPR The Brain Science behind Britain’s New Parenting Classes, The Washington Post In the Academic Literature: Why I Tense Up When You Watch Me: Inferior Parietal Cortex Mediates an Audience’s Influence on Motor Performance, Scientific Reports COMT and OPRM1 Genotype Associations with Daily Knee Pain Variability and Activity Induced Pain, Scandinavian Journal of Pain Acceptance in Theory but not Practice – Chinese Medical Providers’ Perception of Brain Death, Neuroethics Cocaine Elicits Autophagic Cytotoxicity via a Nitric Oxide-GAPDH Signaling Cascade, PNAS The Primate Amygdala in Social Perception – Insights from Electrophysiological Recordings and Stimulation, Trends in Neurosciences Nanoconnectomic upper bound on the variability of synaptic plasticity, eLIFE

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"Sleepwalking as a Defence for Illegal Behaviour: A Commentary on Popat & Winslade"

"Sleepwalking as a Defence for Illegal Behaviour: A Commentary on Popat & Winslade" by Helen M. Stallman has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics.

 

 

"Acceptance in Theory but not Practice – Chinese Medical Providers’ Perception of Brain Death"

"Acceptance in Theory but not Practice – Chinese Medical Providers’ Perception of Brain Death" by Qing Yang, Yi Fan, Qian Cheng, Xin Li, Kaveh Khoshnood, and Geoffrey Miller has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Background

The brain death standard allowing a declaration of death based on neurological criteria is legally endorsed and routinely practiced in the West but not in Asia. In China, attempts to legalize the brain death standard have occurred several times without success. Cultural, religious, and philosophical factors have been proposed to explain this difference, but there is a lack of empirical studies to support this hypothesis.

Methods

476 medical providers (72 attending physicians, 84 residents, 210 medical students, 110 nurses) from three academic hospitals in Hunan, China, completed a selfadministered survey including a 12-question brain death clinical knowledge assessment and hypothetical vignettes describing brain dead patients.

Results

The response rate was 95.2 %. Almost all of the providers had heard of the term “brain death.” More than half have encountered presumed brain dead patients. Two-thirds accepted brain death as an ethical standard to determine human death. The mean knowledge score was 8.50 ± 1.83 out of 12. When given the description of a brain dead patient, 50.7 % considered the patient dead, 51.9 % would withdraw life support, and 40.6 % would allow organ procurement. Both provider and patient characteristics contributed to the providers’ decisions. Ethical acceptance was the most important independent predictor for brain death acknowledgement, followed by high knowledge scores, and the belief that the soul lives in the brain. Religious faith and associated beliefs did not have a significant effect.

Conclusions

Notwithstanding scarce official accounts, recognition of the brain death standard is not uncommon in China. Chinese medical providers can adequately define the medical characteristics of brain death and accept it in theory, but hesitate to apply it to practice in the vignettes. Legalization is paramount in providing the protection providers need to comfortably declare brain death. However the medical decision-making surrounding brain death is complex and the provider's past experiences and emotions may also influence the process.

Deep Brain Stimulation in Anorexia Nervosa: Different Mechanisms, Different Implications for Autonomy and Authenticity (Guest Post – Jonathan Pugh)

In a paper that was recently published (open access) in Neuroethics, Dr. Hannah Maslen, Prof. Julian Savulescu, and I provide an ethical analysis of the use of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in the treatment of treatment-refractory anorexia nervosa (AN). In this post, I shall briefly summarise the first half of this paper, in which we explain why the use of DBS in the treatment of AN raises new ethical questions, and describe the different mechanisms that DBS might operate upon.

Guest Blogger - Jonathan Pugh

Hello!

My name is Jonathan Pugh, I am currently employed as a postdoctoral research fellow in applied moral philosophy at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. My research focuses broadly on issues concerning personal autonomy in practical ethics, particularly topics pertaining to informed consent; you can see some of my published work at my academia.edu page.

"Moral Evaluations of Organ Transplantation Influence Judgments of Death and Causation"

"Moral Evaluations of Organ Transplantation Influence Judgments of Death and Causation" by Michael Nair-Collins and Mary A. Gerend has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Two experiments investigated whether moral evaluations of organ transplantation influence judgments of death and causation. Participants’ beliefs about whether an unconscious organ donor was dead and whether organ removal caused death in a hypothetical vignette varied depending on the moral valence of the vignette. Those who were randomly assigned to the good condition (vs. bad) were more likely to believe that the donor was dead prior to organ removal and that organ removal did not cause death. Furthermore, attitudes toward euthanasia and organ donation independently predicted judgments of death and causation, regardless of experimental condition. The results are discussed in light of the framework of motivated reasoning, in which motivation influences the selection of cognitive processes and representations applied to a given domain, as well as Knobe’s person-as-moralist model, in which many basic concepts are appropriately imbued with moral features. On either explanatory framework, these data cast doubt on the psychological legitimacy of the mainstream justification for vital organ procurement from heart-beating donors, which holds that neurological criteria for death are scientifically justified, independently of concerns about organ transplantation. These data suggest that, rather than concluding that organ removal is permissible because the donor is dead, people may believe that the donor is dead because they believe organ removal to be permissible.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article(s): We're Thinking About ADHD All Wrong, Says A Top Pediatrician, NPR In The Popular Press: Why Boredom is Anything but Boring, Nature News Psychedelic Therapy, Mosaic Parents Turn to Prozac to Treat Down Syndrome, MIT Technology Review A Neuroscientist Says There’s a Powerful Benefit to Exercise that is Rarely Discussed, Quartz Anatomy of Addiction: How Heroin and Opioids Hijack the Brain, NPR How We Learn Fairness, The New Yorker “Fetal Assault” and Later Environment Effects on Child Development: Using Neuroscience as a Tool for Political Policy, The Neuroethics Blog Why We Find it Hard to Stick to New Year Resolutions, The Quardian Hate the Sound of Your Own Voice? You Could Be Missing a Shot at Happiness, Quartz AI Algorithm Identifies Humorous Pictures, MIT Technology Review Scientists Think “Baby Brain” Makes Women Smarter and More Organized, Not Less, Quartz Lucid Dreamers May Help Unravel the Mystery of Consciousness, Discover Magazine Franco Pestilli, Indiana University – Re-Discovering a Lost Part of the Brain, The Academic Minute Morphine for Back Pain Tied to Rapid Changes in Brain, Reuters Hope in a Glove for Parkinson’s Patients, MIT Technology Review In the Academic Literature: White-Matter Tract Connecting Anterior Insula to Nucleus Accumbens Correlates with Reduced Preference for Positively Skewed Gambles, Neuron Generation of Serotonin Neurons from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells, Nature Biotechnology Parallel Specification of Competing Sensorimotor Control Policies for Alternative Action Options, Nature Neuroscience Emotional Appraisal of Moral Dilemmas: What Neuroimaging Can Tell about the Disgust–Morality Link, Journal of Neuroscience Neurobiology: Pull Out the Stops for Plasticity, Nature Magazine Basolateral and Central Amygdala Differentially Recruit and Maintain Dorsolateral Striatum-Dependent Cocaine-Seeking Habits, Nature Communications Dogs Recognize Dog and Human Emotions, Biology Letters

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"The Clinical Impact of the Brain Disease Model of Alcohol and Drug Addiction: Exploring the Attitudes of Community-Based AOD Clinicians in Australia"

"The Clinical Impact of the Brain Disease Model of Alcohol and Drug Addiction: Exploring the Attitudes of Community-Based AOD Clinicians in Australia" by Anthony I. Barnett and Craig L. Fry has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Despite recent increasing support for the brain disease model (BDM) of alcohol and drug addiction, the extent to which the model may clinically impact addiction treatment and client behaviour remains unclear. This qualitative study explored the views of community-based clinicians in Australia and examined: (i) whether Australian community-based clinicians support the BDM of addiction; (ii) their attitudes on the impact the model may have on clinical treatment; and (iii) their views on how framing addiction as a brain disease may impact addicted clients’ behaviour. Six Australian community-based clinicians participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews that were analysed using thematic analysis. Whilst the BDM was not fully supported by this purposive sample of Australian community-based clinicians, there was acceptance that addiction neuroscience formed a key part of a wider addiction framework. Participants believed the BDM ignored key social, psychological and environmental factors important for successful treatment. The BDM was seen as potentially irrelevant for certain client types (e.g., where housing or financial concerns were of high priority), however the model was believed to integrate with particular therapies (e.g., mindfulness or cognitive-behaviour therapy). Participants believed that for clients viewing their addiction in terms of a brain disease, there were potential positive (increased insight and decreased stigma) and negative (increased stigma and sense of helplessness, reduced personal responsibility) impacts on client behaviour. Implications for addiction treatment practice and public health policy are discussed.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

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Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"Best Interest Fact-or-Fiction: Considering Deception and Danger Facing Children Whose Parents Work Undercover"

Recently published on SSRN (and in the Journal of Law and Social Deviance, Vol. 9 (2015)):

 

"Best Interest Fact-or-Fiction: Considering Deception and Danger Facing Children Whose Parents Work Undercover"

 

CARMEN M. CUSACK, Nova Southeastern University

Undercover agents, confidential informants, spies, and operatives (herein, “undercovers”) may be forced to lie to their children and conscript their children into undercover work. When agents work undercover, their children may be emotionally, physically, and psychologically neglected or harmed. Children may be forced to believe and participate in a religion or culture merely as a front for their parents’ work, and they may be deceived about their ethnicities, family history, status, and other fundamentally important bases of their identities. Undercover agents and operatives may force their children to keep secrets; serve as information couriers; lie; and participate in espionage, subversion, or information-gathering. Local authorities, federal agents, and foreign operatives may generally function using these tactics. Children may learn the truth later in life and suffer severe trauma and dysfunction, or they may be coerced into maintaining covers and conspiracies throughout their lives, further exposing themselves to danger, and, potentially, criminal charges. This Article discusses undercover work in which families maintain covert identities.

 

Section Two discusses deep deception required to maintain covers. This Section explains the importance of therapeutic treatment as a regular part of debriefing undercovers and concluding undercover work. This Section also describes the systemic lack of instruction, debriefing, or institutional concern for children in undercover situations and families. These children may include children who are placed at risk by their parents and children who are deceived by their parents. These children are victims of undercover work. Section Two also suggests that agencies using undercover agents should provide help children mitigate their trauma. Section Three compares undercover family life to the Witness Protection Program to demonstrate the severity and austerity that may befall undercovers’ children. Section Three compares various governmental policies on minor informants and child spies to argue that undercovers’ children may be vulnerable and deserve legal safeguards. Section Four explains why parental rights may not extend to situations in which undercover parents conscript their children into risky or illegal situations.

 

Section Four analyzes criminal liability for undercovers and potential criminal liability for children who willfully collude with their parents who operate illegally to gather or supply information. Constitutional limitations discussed in Section Four include limitations on the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and Fifth Amendment. Section Five proposes that a “best interest” standard derived from family law should be expanded to apply to undercovers’ children. Section Five argues that judicial approval should be sought in cases where undercovers’ children may potentially risk harm or psychological trauma. Section Five contends that, under the best interest standard, children of undercovers who were psychologically harmed or threatened by their parents’ work may be removed from their parents’ care. Section Six concludes that undercovers’ agencies should attend to possible risks facing children and provide therapeutic treatment. Furthermore, courts should weigh various factors on a case-by-case basis to determine whether undercover work is in a child’s best interests.