Entry on "Neuroenhancement" in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online.

Not too long ago, neurotechnology was the purview of the clinic and research. In 2011, researchers at Brown University succeeded for the first time in using an implanted sensor in the brain of a pa...

Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user’s brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empirical evidence or public engagement. From a social science or empirical ethics perspective, this tendency could be considered problematic and even technocratic because (...) of its disconnect from publics. In response, our trinational survey (Germany, Canada, and Spain) reports public attitudes toward BCIs (N = 1,403) on ethical issues that were carefully derived from academic ethics literature. The results show moderately high levels of concern toward agent-related issues (e.g., changing the user’s self) and consequence-related issues (e.g., new forms of hacking). Both facets of concern were higher among respondents who reported as female or as religious, while education, age, own and peer disability, and country of residence were associated with either agent-related or consequence-related concerns. These findings provide a first look at BCI attitudes across three national contexts, suggesting that the language and content of academic BCI ethics may resonate with some publics and their values. (shrink)

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a brain stimulation technique known for its relative safety and minimal invasiveness. tDCS has demonstrated efficacy as a potential treatment for certain neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, and has been shown to enhance a range of cognitive abilities under certain contexts. As a result, this technique has captured the interest of both the research community and the public at large. However, efforts to gather information about the effects of tDCS on the brain are (...) still in their infancy, leading to concerns about informed consent as it pertains to the possible risks associated with tDCS treatment. The ability to purchase tDCS equipment in the form of commercial, direct-to-consumer devices, generates even more cause for ethical concern, given the unknowns surrounding this technology and its potential broader societal impact. Previous research has touched on the many ethical issues raised by the emergence of this technology, including under what circumstances its use is justifiable and appropriate. In this paper, we survey recent normative and empirical works pertaining to the ethics of tDCS with the goal of summarizing the current state of ethical debate surrounding its use in the contexts of both therapy and cognitive enhancement, with a particular emphasis on the latter. Our analysis of the collected research finds that issues pertaining to user safety are paramount within existing scholarship; that tDCS use in children is an emerging area of concern entailing special considerations; and that regulatory bodies and legal agencies have struggled to implement appropriate, impactful regulation pertaining to tDCS and related technologies in order to balance public welfare against individual autonomy. This analysis will facilitate future efforts to develop bioethical approaches to tDCS by highlighting the ethical dimensions of tDCS prioritized in existing literature and identifying areas where further ethical consideration is needed. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience have enabled the transition of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) from research and clinical settings to public use. For this primarily home-based context, tDCS has been popularized as a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to improved cognition and wellness. The line between wellness and health is blurry, however, and little is known about how engagement with therapeutic tDCS impacts users’ interactions with other interventions such as clinical consultations, pharmacotherapy, complementary medicine, and even other neurotechnology. To close this gap, we (...) collected data from the online content aggregator Reddit and analyzed posts pertaining to tDCS. Findings indicate that most users turn to Reddit to request information about tDCS as an adjunct, but not as a bypass, to ongoing or prior approaches. Posts suggest that mainstream medical care is viewed as necessary but not sufficient to address conditions such as depression and anxiety. Users discuss a mix of benefits and harms. This discourse provides valuable insights into the health practices, concerns and priorities of users, and new knowledge for informing applications of neurotechnology both inside and outside the therapeutic setting. (shrink)

Like many ethics debates surrounding emerging technologies, neuroethics is increasingly concerned with the private sector. Here, entrepreneurial visions and claims of how neurotechnology innovation will revolutionize society—from brain-computer-interfaces to neural enhancement and cognitive phenotyping—are confronted with public and policy concerns about the risks and ethical challenges related to such innovations. But while neuroethics frameworks have a longer track record in public sector research such as the U.S. BRAIN Initiative, much less is known about how businesses—and especially start-ups—address ethics in tech (...) development. In this paper, we investigate how actors in the field frame and enact ethics as part of their innovative R&D processes and business models. Drawing on an empirical case study on direct-to-consumer (DTC) neurotechnology start-ups, we find that actors engage in careful boundary-work to anticipate and address public critique of their technologies, which allows them to delineate a manageable scope of their ethics integration. In particular, boundaries are drawn around four areas: the technology’s actual capability, purpose, safety and evidence-base. By drawing such lines of demarcation, we suggest that start-ups make their visions of ethical neurotechnology in society more acceptable, plausible and desirable, favoring their innovations while at the same time assigning discrete responsibilities for ethics. These visions establish a link from the present into the future, mobilizing the latter as promissory place where a technology’s benefits will materialize and to which certain ethical issues can be deferred. In turn, the present is constructed as a moment in which ethical engagement could be delegated to permissive regulatory standards and scientific authority. Our empirical tracing of the construction of ‘ethical realities’ in and by start-ups offers new inroads for ethics research and governance in tech industries beyond neurotechnology. (shrink)

Background Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a brain stimulation technique currently being researched as an alternative or complimentary treatment for various neurological disorders. There is little knowledge about experiences of the participants of tDCS clinical research, especially from pediatric studies. Methods An interview study with typically developing minors (n = 19, mean age 13,66 years) participating in a tDCS study, and their parents (n = 18) was conducted to explore their views and experiences and inform the ethical analysis. Results (...) Children (10–13 years old) and adolescents (14–18 years old) reported good experiences with the stimulation. Next to financial incentives, main motives to participate in the study were curiosity and the possibility to help develop treatments for children affected by neurological disorders. They could also see a potential of using tDCS in a non-medical setting, especially regarding the provision of equal opportunity, e.g. in education. Parents also presented a positive attitude towards tDCS and their children participation in the basic research study. Nevertheless, their understanding of tDCS was rather poor. Even though many of them understood the techniques, they often did not see the link between the (current) lack of side effects and an absence of longitudinal studies. Parents were also cautious about using tDCS for non-medical/enhancement purposes. Conclusions The study findings show a need for more transparent information about the state of the art of tDCS, its function and what it might be able to offer, especially considering the good acceptability of tDCS. (shrink)

The study of controversies is an important methodological tool for understanding key aspects of scientific activity that are invisible from within the science itself. Following Sarah Whatmore, we argue that controversies are a force field within which there is a redistribution of expertise. As an application of the basic principles of ANT, the mapping of controversies lacks the disadvantages of constructivist and epistemological approaches to science. While preserving the validity of scientific facts, it could demonstrate the practice of finding allies (...) and creating new associations in the process of creating science. The analysis of controversies shows that a key feature of neuroscience today is a theoretical "consensus". The most important principle of this "consensus" is the idea of neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to be changed as a result of new experiences. The use of mapping methods allows us to show that this agreement hides a complex of controversies that touch on the problem of brain plasticity and theoretical models of behaviors. An attempt to explore these controversies reveals various strategies for finding allies within opposing research programs. These competing trends were divided into two groups: proponents of "universal" plasticity, which presupposes general laws for different structural levels of brain organization, and proponents of multiple plasticity. One of the most important strategies for expanding networks used by participants in the study is to reconstruct the history of their own object, as well as to attract non-specialists to obtain the necessary data for research. (shrink)