​The Ethics of Neuroscience - A Different Lens

New technologies are allowing us to have control over the human brain like never before. As we push the possibilities we must ask ourselves, what is neuroscience today and how far is too far?

The world’s best neurosurgeons can now provide treatments for things that were previously untreatable, such as Parkinson’s and clinical depression. Many patients are cured, while others develop side effects such as erratic behaviour and changes in their personality. 

Not only do we have greater understanding of clinical psychology, forensic psychology and criminal psychology, we also have more control. Professional athletes and gamers are now using this technology – some of it untested – to improve performance. However, with these amazing possibilities come great ethical concerns.

This manipulation of the brain has far-reaching effects, impacting the law, marketing, health industries and beyond. We need to investigate the capabilities of neuroscience and ask the ethical questions that will determine how far we can push the science of mind and behaviour.

How Scientists are Working to Create Cyborg Humans with Super Intelligence

Hannah Osborne
Newsweek
Originally posted on June 14, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

There are three main approaches to doing this. The first involves recording information from the brain, decoding it via a computer or machine interface, and then utilizing the information for a purpose.

The second is to influence the brain by stimulating it pharmacologically or electrically: “So you can stimulate the brain to produce artificial sensations, like the sensation of touch, or vision for the blind,” he says. “Or you could stimulate certain areas to improve their functions—like improved memory, attention. You can even connect two brains together—one brain will stimulate the other—like where scientists transferred memories of one rat to another.”

The final approach is defined as “futuristic.” This would include humans becoming cyborgs, for example, and would raise the ethical and philosophical questions that will need to be addressed before scientists merge man and machine.

Lebedev said these ethical concerns could become real in the next 10 years, but the current technology poses no serious threat.

The article is here.

Drug discovery: A jump-start for electroceuticals

Kristoffer Famm, Brian Litt, Kevin J. Tracey, Edward S. Boyden & Moncef Slaoui
Nature 496, 159–161 (11 April 2013) doi:10.1038/496159a

Here are some excerpts:

Imagine a day when electrical impulses are a mainstay of medical treatment. Your clinician will administer 'electroceuticals' that target individual nerve fibres or specific brain circuits to treat an array of conditions. These treatments will modulate the neural impulses controlling the body, repair lost function and restore health. They could, for example, coax insulin from cells to treat diabetes, regulate food intake to treat obesity and correct balances in smooth-muscle tone to treat hypertension and pulmonary diseases.

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Critics will argue that we underestimate the complexity of the nervous system; the challenges in reliably, durably and non-disruptively manipulating groups of individual neurons and the sheer volume of neural information flowing through these circuits. We would argue that miniaturization and big-data handling have been among the most rapidly advancing areas of scientific research in the past decade. Starting off with peripheral intervention points and simpler circuits should also help.

The entire story is here, hiding behind a paywall.