In this paper, the authors explore the question of whether cognitive enhancement via direct neurostimulation, such as through deep brain stimulation, could be reasonably characterized as a form of transformative experience. This question is inspired by a qualitative study being conducted with people at risk of developing dementia and in intimate relationships with people living with dementia (PLWD). They apply L.A. Paul’s work on transformative experience to the question of cognitive enhancement and explore potential limitations on the kind of claims (...) that can legitimately be made about individual well-being and flourishing, as well as limit the kind of empirical work—including the authors’ own—that can hope to enlighten ethical discourse. In this paper, the authors advance the following theses: (1) it is sometimes reasonable to characterize cognitive enhancement as a transformative experience; (2) the testimonies of people intimately acquainted with dementia may still be relevant to evaluating cognitive enhancement even though cognitive enhancement may be a transformative experience; and (3) qualitative studies may still be useful in the ethical analysis of cognitive enhancement, but special attention may need to be given to how these are conducted and what kind of insights can be drawn from them. (shrink)

Advances in neurotechnologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data analytics are allowing interpretation of patterns from brain data to identify and even predict and manipulate mental states. Furthermore, there are avenues through which brain data can move into the consumer sphere, be reidentified and brokered. In response to these developments, there have been a number of approaches proposed to strengthen protections of brain data. To better understand the landscape of brain data protection discussions, we conducted a scoping review to identify (...) the rationales for establishing brain data protections and the proposals for protecting brain data offered in the ethics and neuroscience literature. To draw comparisons, we also surveyed the rationales given in the literature for the protection of sensitive behavioral inferences drawn from other types of personal data and associated approaches to achieving protection. This systematic examination of the rationale behind heightened protection for brain data should be useful to clarify the functional and conceptual bases given for brain data protection and to provide a better grounding for evaluating how the different approaches to brain data protection address these concerns. (shrink)