Neuroethics & Law Blog

"G2i Knowledge Brief: A Knowledge Brief of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience"

Recently posted on SSRN: "G2i Knowledge Brief: A Knowledge Brief of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience" 

DAVID L. FAIGMAN, University of California Hastings College of the Law

RICHARD J. BONNIE, University of Virginia - School of Law

BJ CASEY, Yale University - Department of Psychology

ANDRE DAVIS, US Court of Appeals - Fourth Circuit

MORRIS B. HOFFMAN, Second Judicial District Court Judge, State of Colorado

OWEN D. JONES, Vanderbilt University - Law School & Dept. of Biological Sciences

READ MONTAGUE, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University - Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute

STEPHEN MORSE, University of Pennsylvania Law School

MARCUS E. RAICHLE, Washington University School of Medicine

JENNIFER A. RICHESON, Yale University - Department of Psychology

ELIZABETH S. SCOTT, Columbia University - Law School

LAURENCE STEINBERG, Temple University

KIM A. TAYLOR-THOMPSON, New York University School of Law

ANTHONY D. WAGNER, Stanford University - Psychology

GIDEON YAFFE, Yale Law School

Courts are daily confronted with admissibility issues – such as in cases involving neuroscientific testimony – that sometimes involve both the existence of a general phenomenon (i.e., “G”) and the question of whether a particular case represents a specific instance of that general phenomenon (i.e., “i”).

Unfortunately, courts have yet to carefully consider the implications of “G2i” for their admissibility decisions. In some areas, courts limit an expert’s testimony to the general phenomenon. They insist that whether the case at hand is an instance of that phenomenon is exclusively a jury question, and thus not an appropriate subject of expert opinion. In other cases, in contrast, courts hold that expert evidence must be provided on both the group-data issue (i.e., that the phenomenon exists) and what is called the “diagnostic” issue (i.e., that this case is an instance of that phenomenon).

Consequently, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience has prepared this knowledge brief to help courts manage the G2i divide. Specifically, we recommend that courts first determine whether proffered expert testimony concerns only the existence of the general phenomenon or instead concerns both that and the diagnosis that a particular case represents an instance of that phenomenon. Only after making that determination should the court make its admissibility decision (guided, for instance, by the Daubert factors for admitting scientific evidence).

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Chess Study Revives Debate Over Cognition-Enhancing Drugs, JAMA    Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate, Kaiser Health News Ultra-Small Antennas Point Way to Miniature Brain Implants, Nature Magazine Amazon Has Developed an AI Fashion Designer, MIT Technology Review Scanning Your Brain Can Predict What Will Happen in the Future, New Scientist Bad Weekend? How Injecting a Virus into the Brain Could Wipe Your Memory, The Guardian Monkeys can see faces in inanimate things, just like us, New Scientist A Feminist Neuroethics of Mental Health, The Neuroethics Blog Just Released: Neuroethics: Anticipating the Future, Neuroethics at the Core Some Nerves: How Loud Noise May Change Hearing, The Conversation The Download, MIT Technology Review Newborn Babies Already Have a Sense of How Numbers Work, New Scientist Do Kids Have a Fundamental Sense of Fairness?, Scientific American A Pioneering Neuroscientist Reports From ‘the Border of Life and Death, New York Times Lithium in Tap Water Seems to Both Raise and Lower Dementia Risk, New Scientist Germany Takes an Ethics Stance on Driverless Cars: Don’t Kill Humans, MIT Technology Review Splitting Depression Apart, Nature Reviews Neuroscience   When Brain Beats Behavior: Neuroforecasting Crowdfunding Outcomes, Journal of Neuroscience Income Inequality, Gene Expression, and Brain Maturation During Adolescence, Scientific Reports Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Markers Differentiate Collision versus Contact and Non-Contact Athletes, Frontiers in Neurology  Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning is Associated with Increased Ventral Striatal Activity at Rest and During Task, Scientific Reports  Threats to Neurosurgical Patients Posed by the Personal Identity Debate, Neuroethics

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.

 

"Review of Nada Gligorov: Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense"

"Review of Nada Gligorov: Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense" by Paul Boswell has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

This ambitious book aims to make a substantive contribution to six separate debates within neuroethics — the existence of free will, the impact of cognitive enhancement and (separately) of memory management on personal identity, the nature of mental privacy, the supposed subjectivity of pain, and the proper definition of death — all in the context of a framing argument concerning the relation between common sense psychological concepts and scientific concepts. Gligorov means to rebut skepticism about folk mental states in the face of surprising neuroscientific results by reconceptualizing folk theories as protean, incorporating some of the very results that seem to challenge them. My impression is that Gligorov’s arguments on cognitive enhancement, memory modification, and brain death make helpful contributions to the respective literatures on those subjects, but I close with a number of concerns about the book, especially whether its framing argument is successful in its current form.

"Can the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis Explain Why Addiction is a Medical Disorder?: Reply to Marc Lewis"

"Can the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis Explain Why Addiction is a Medical Disorder?: Reply to Marc Lewis" by Jerome C. Wakefield has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics.

 

Talk on Free Will and Criminal Law

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 6 to 7:30 p.m.  Reception to follow About the Program Can we hold people morally responsible if their choices were determined by forces in the universe predating their birth? Do such age-old questions about free will matter to the law? The people who crafted the law probably didn't think of us as being constrained by the laws of physics. They probably believed that we have souls that can spontaneously choose to act maliciously. Since the crafters of the law aimed to punish evil-doing souls, they may never have intended to punish people like ourselves. Based on traditionally recognized sources of legal authority (such as lawmaker intent), the view that criminal law was never intended to apply to mechanistic humans may be more plausible than the view that the law was intended to punish people like us. This talk will discuss the relationship between free will and criminal law and argue that current law may change as we come to see human action as more machine-like and less reliant on a soul. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition Presenter Adam Kolber  Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School Discussant Lawrence Solan Don Forchelli Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition, Brooklyn Law School Location Brooklyn Law School Subotnick Center 250 Joralemon Street www.brooklaw.edu/directions CLE Credit Offered The program provides 1.5 CLE credits in the State of New York. Partial credit is not available. The credits are transitional and non-transitional and the category is Ethics. Brooklyn Law School may offer financial assistance to participants who meet certain qualifications and our financial aid policy is available at www.brooklaw.edu/financialaidcle. Registration The cost of the program is $30, regardless of whether you attend for CLE credit.  The program is free of charge for all [BLS] faculty and students, as well as for members of the 1901 Society. REGISTER BY SEPTEMBER 5  Brooklyn Law School | 250 Joralemon Street | Brooklyn, NY 11201 T: 718-780-7966 | E: [email protected]              Make a Gift

"Threats to Neurosurgical Patients Posed by the Personal Identity Debate"

"Threats to Neurosurgical Patients Posed by the Personal Identity Debate" by Sabine Müller, Merlin Bittlinger, and Henrik Walter has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

Decisions about brain surgery pose existential challenges because they are often decisions about life or death, and sometimes about possible personality changes. Therefore they require rigorous neuroethical consideration. However, we doubt whether metaphysical interpretations of ambiguous statements of patients are useful for deriving ethical and legal conclusions. Particularly, we question the application of psychological theories of personal identity on neuroethical issues for several reasons. First, even the putative “standard view” on personal identity is contentious. Second, diverse accounts of personal identity have been introduced into the neuroethical debate, which are incompatible. Third, the criteria for “diagnosing” the supposed changes in “identity” are ambiguous and indeterminate. Fourth, the metaphysical theories of personal identity imply highly questionable ethical and legal revisions, namely the denial of advance directives, particularly of Ulysses contracts, and, for patients with brain cancer, even therapeutic nihilism.

We discuss three examples in which ideas from the personal identity debate in metaphysics are straightforwardly applied to discuss ethical issues of neurosurgery. We discuss revisions of the current medico-legal practice that have been proposed on grounds of psychological theories of personal identity. We argue that the established status quo in law and clinical practice is beneficial to the patients concerned. Furthermore, it is metaphysically neutral, which is an important principle of liberal, democratic, pluralistic societies.

We recommend a pragmatic approach: (1) empirical research on personality changes arising from brain disorders or interventions, (2) comprehensive information about risks of personality changes, and (3) advance directives, particularly Ulysses contracts.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Learning to Learn: You, Too, Can Rewire Your Brain New York Times   Why You Can’t Trust Yourself to Match Photos of Strangers’ Faces, The New York Times Chess Study Revives Debate Over Cognition-Enhancing Drugs, JAMA  Neuroscientists Hack Itching, Exposing a Mysterious Neural Circuit, Vice Motherboard Wi-Fi Signals May One Day Be Used to Tell If You’re Dreaming, Gizmodo An AI Dreamed Up Street Scenes, and They’re Surprisingly Good, MIT Technology Review Can Humans Understand Chimps? The Atlantic Art helped me tell my story': brain injury survivors share self-portraits, The Guardian What Can Musicians Teach Us about Imagination? Scientific American Why Wine Tastes Better When It Costs More, TIME Call of MRI: Action Video Games And The Brain, Discover: Neuroskeptic Obesity And Depression Are Entwined, Yet Scientists Don’t Know Why, Kaiser Health News Chimps Understand Rock-Paper-Scissors as Well as Preschoolers, Discover: Inkfish The Politics of Elder Care, Social Care, and the “Dementia Tax”: A View from the United Kingdom, The Neuroethics Blog More on “Behavior Priming” and Unconscious Influences, Discover: Neuroskeptic Cells throughout the body can detect light, too, Scientific American NIH study uncovers specialized mouse neurons that play a unique role in pain, NIH News  Lost in the Maze? Navigating Evidence and Ethics in Translational Neuroscience, Volkswagen Foundation   Emerging Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces for Patients with Total Locked-in Syndrome, Neuroethics Cortical and Subcortical Coordination of Visual Spatial Attention Revealed by Simultaneous EEG–fMRI Recording, JNeurosci Ethical issues when modelling brain disorders in non-human primates, Journal of Medical Ethics  Neurobiology: A bitter–sweet symphony, Nature Rewiring the taste system, Nature

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.

 

"Amnestic MCI Patients’ Perspectives toward Disclosure of Amyloid PET Results in a Research Context"

"Amnestic MCI Patients’ Perspectives toward Disclosure of Amyloid PET Results in a Research Context" by Gwendolien Vanderschaeghe, Jolien Schaeverbeke, Rik Vandenberghe, and Kris Dierickx has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

Background

Researchers currently are not obligated to share individual research results (IRR) with participants. This non-disclosure policy has been challenged on the basis of participants’ rights to be aware and in control of their personal medical information. Here, we determined how patients view disclosure of research PET results of brain amyloid and why they believe it is advantageous or disadvantageous to disclose.

Method

As a part of a larger diagnostic trial, we conducted semi-structured interviews with patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). Participants had the option to receive their brain amyloid PET scan result (i.e., their IRR). Interviews were conducted before they received their IRR.

Results

A total of 38 aMCI patients (100% of study participants) wanted to know their IRR. The two most frequently mentioned reasons for choosing IRR disclosure were to better understand their brain health status and to be better able to make informed decisions about future personal arrangements (e.g., inheritance tax, moving into a smaller house, end-of-life decisions, etc.). Emotional risk was mentioned as the primary disadvantage of knowing one’s IRR. On the other hand, non-disclosure was considered to be emotionally difficult also, as patients would be uncertain about their future health condition.

Conclusions

Many patients diagnosed clinically with aMCI want to know their brain amyloid test results, even though this knowledge may be disadvantageous to them. Knowing what is going on with their health and the ability to make informed decisions about their future were the two principal advantages mentioned for obtaining their amyloid PET results. Because of the overwhelming consensus of aMCI patients was to disclose their brain amyloid PET scan results, researchers should strongly consider releasing this information to research subjects.

 

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Scientists just found another worrying link between sugar and depression, Quartz    Watching children learn how to lie The Conversation Model hallucinations Aeon How Smartphones Are Making Kids Unhappy NPR The First-Ever Brain-Controlled VR Game Gives You the Power of Telekinesis The Download Why the human brain can do the maths The Guardian Learning to Learn: You, Too, Can Rewire Your Brain New York Times Can This Drug Cure Performance Anxiety? The Atlantic Researchers are studying psychopathic chimps to better understand the human variety BPS Research Digest First Evidence That Social Bots Play a Major Role in Spreading Fake News MIT Technology Review Uncovering the Secrets of a Trustworthy Face Scientific American The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: The Entire History of You The Neuroethics Blog Lag In Brain Donation Hampers Understanding Of Dementia In Blacks Kaiser Health News  Scientists found more evidence that we can learn during sleep Quartz “Alexa, Understand Me” MIT technology Review Video Games Can Either Grow Or Shrink Part of Your Brain, Depending on How You Play, Quartz How Machine Learning Is Helping Neuroscientists Crack Our Neural Code MIT Technology Review   Female Brains Are More Active? Discover Possible Anti-Aging Brain Therapy Shows Promise in Mice Scientific American What Self-Talk Reveals about the Brain Scientific American The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations PNAS Fronto-parietal structural connectivity in childhood predicts development of functional connectivity and reasoning ability: a large-scale longitudinal investigation The Journal of Neuroscience Functional MRI neurofeedback training on connectivity between two regions induces long-lasting changes in intrinsic functional network Frontiers Gender-Based Cerebral Perfusion Differences in 46,034 Functional Neuroimaging Scans IOS Press How to map the circuits that define us Nature  The complete connectome of a learning and memory centre in an insect brain Nature

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.

 

“Should We Treat Vegetative and Minimally Conscious Patients as Persons?”

"Should We Treat Vegetative and Minimally Conscious Patients as Persons?" by Matthew Braddock has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

How should we treat patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) or minimally conscious state (MCS)? More specifically, should we treat them as having the full moral status of persons? Yes, or so we argue. First, we introduce the medical conditions of PVS, MCS, and the related conditions of Locked-in Syndrome and covert awareness. Second, we characterize the main argument for thinking diagnosed PVS patients are not persons. Third, we contend that this argument is defeated by mounting empirical evidence for the considerable uncertainty of PVS diagnoses. Fourth, we characterize a new argument for PVS non-personhood suggested by Neil Levy and Julian Savulescu, one intended to accommodate the diagnostic uncertainty. According to this argument, even if diagnosed PVS patients are in fact MCS, it makes no difference because MCS patients are probably not persons either. Fifth, we challenge the new argument by assembling reasons for doubting the claim that MCS patients are not persons. The outcome is that it is fairly uncertain whether diagnosed PVS and MCS patients are persons or not. What should we do in light of this uncertainty (given its present intractability)? Sixth, we develop and support a guiding precautionary principle, which we call Precautionary Personhood. Finally, we apply the principle to the case of diagnosed PVS and MCS patients: we argue that given substantial uncertainty about their personhood we should go ahead and treat these patients as if they are persons.

"Views of Caregivers on the Ethics of Assistive Technology Used for Home Surveillance of People Living with Dementia"

"Views of Caregivers on the Ethics of Assistive Technology Used for Home Surveillance of People Living with Dementia" by Maurice Mulvenna, Anton Hutton, Vivien Coates, Suzanne Martin, Stephen Todd, Raymond Bond, and Anne Moorhead has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

This paper examines the ethics of using assistive technology such as video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia. Ideation and concept elaboration around the introduction of a camera-based surveillance service in the homes of people with dementia, typically living alone, is explored. The paper reviews relevant literature on surveillance of people living with dementia, and summarises the findings from ideation and concept elaboration workshops, designed to capture the views of those involved in the care of people living with dementia at home. The research question relates to the ethical considerations of using assistive technologies that include video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia, and the implications for a person living with dementia whenever video surveillance is used in their home and access to the camera is given to the person’s family. The review of related work indicated that such video surveillance may result in loss of autonomy or freedom for the person with dementia. The workshops reflected the findings from the related work, and revealed useful information to inform the service design, in particular in fine-tuning the service to find the best relationship between privacy and usefulness. Those who took part in the workshops supported the concept of the use of camera in the homes of people living with dementia, with some significant caveats around privacy. The research carried out in this work is small in scale but points towards an acceptance by many caregivers of people living with dementia of surveillance technologies. This paper indicates that those who care for people living with dementia at home are willing to make use of camera technology and therefore the value of this work is to help shed light on the direction for future research.

 

Program for Sydney Conference, Launching Australian Neuroethics Network

Here's the link to the Neuroscience and Society conference program in September in Sydney. Looks great!

"Why Enhancing Autonomy Is Not a Question of Improving Single Aspects of Reasoning Abilities through Neuroenhancement"

"Why Enhancing Autonomy Is Not a Question of Improving Single Aspects of Reasoning Abilities through Neuroenhancement" by Johannes Pömsl and Orsolya Friedrich has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

In a recent paper, Schaefer et al. proposed to enhance autonomy via improving reasoning abilities through (genetic) cognitive enhancement [1]. While initially their idea additionally seems to elegantly avoid objections against genetic enhancements based on the value of autonomy, we want to draw attention to several problems their approach poses. First, we will show that it is not at all clear that safe and meaningful methods to genetically or pharmaceutically enhance cognition will be feasible any time soon. Second, we want to provide a deeper discussion of the role of cognition and reasoning abilities in philosophical concepts of autonomy, as discussed in the mentioned paper. In doing so, we wish to demonstrate that using reasoning abilities as the common denominator in different accounts of autonomy in the context of enhancement does not do justice to the highly complex interrelations between cognition, reasoning abilities and autonomy. Neither should this way of arguing be accepted as a basis to call for practical outcomes, such as funding research into e. g. genetic cognitive enhancements, if the examined concepts of autonomy are taken seriously.

"Let Me Tell You What I Want: Decisional Capacity, Neurogenic Speech and Language Impairments, and the Law"

Recently posted on SSRN: "Let Me Tell You What I Want: Decisional Capacity, Neurogenic Speech and Language Impairments, and the Law" 

MARSHALL B. KAPP, Florida State University - College of Law and College of Medicine

Patients of speech and language pathologists (SLPs) frequently encounter a variety of important clinical (diagnostic, therapeutic, and research-related), personal, family, residential, and financial decisions that need to be made in their lives. Valid decisions can be made only by people with adequate decisional capacity. Patients’ capacity thus is a crucial matter for SLPs in fulfilling their professional duties.

The subject of decisional capacity is inherently interdisciplinary and encompasses a number of different components, among them medical, psychological, social, ethical, and legal considerations. This article concentrates on the legal aspects of decision making, because “[e]ven when the legal system is not formally involved in the competency evaluation of a particular individual, clinical practice and ethical conduct occur within and are informed by legal parameters.” Put differently, “Judicial decisions and statutory language inform clinical capacity criteria and assessments. Similarly, judicial and legal standards are derived from clinical capacity criteria and clinically based research.”

Guided by a legal focus, the first section outlines the key conceptual foundations anchoring a discussion of decisional capacity generally. The paper then attempts to apply these conceptual foundations specifically to people with significant neurogenic speech and language impairments resulting from aphasia, dysarthia, cognitive deficits, hearing deficiencies, and visual problems. This population is especially at risk of not being involved in the decision making processes that affect their lives. In the ensuing section, the legal and practical consequences of insufficient decisional capacity for individuals with motor speech disorders and language disturbances are set forth.

 

"Emerging Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces for Patients with Total Locked-in Syndrome"

"Emerging Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces for Patients with Total Locked-in Syndrome" by Michael N. Abbott and Steven L. Peck has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

New brain-computer interface and neuroimaging techniques are making differentiation less ambiguous and more accurate between unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients and patients with higher cognitive function and awareness. As research into these areas continues to progress, new ethical issues will face physicians of patients suffering from total locked-in syndrome (total LIS), characterized by complete loss of voluntary muscle control, with retention of cognitive function and awareness detectable only with neuroimaging and brain-computer interfaces. Physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees should be aware of and prepared to handle ethical issues unique to these totally locked-in patients. Several thought experiments are discussed, to highlight potential ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogate decision-making, autonomy, end-of-life care, and pediatric care, which will be unique to total LIS patients. These, along with other ethical problems especially relevant to total LIS patients, merit further discussion among physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees, to facilitate consensus regarding these issues, and improve patient care.