By Hannah Maslen, Brian D Earp, Roi Cohen-Kadosh and Julian Savulescu
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Revised on November 6, 2014
Abstract
Davis (2014) called for "extreme caution" in the use of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) to treat neurological disorders in children, due to gaps in scientific knowledge. We are sympathetic to his position. However, we must also address the ethical implications of applying this technology to minors. Compensatory trade-offs associated with NIBS present a challenge to its use in children, insofar as these trade-offs have the effect of limiting the child's future options. The distinction between treatment and enhancement has some normative force here. As the intervention moves away from being a treatment toward being an enhancement—and thus toward a more uncertain weighing of the benefits, risks, and costs—considerations of the child’s best interests (as judged by the parents) diminish, and the need to protect the child's (future) autonomy looms larger. NIBS for enhancement involving trade-offs should therefore be delayed, if possible, until the child reaches a state of maturity and can make an informed, personal decision. NIBS for treatment, by contrast, is permissible insofar as it can be shown to be at least as safe and effective as currently approved treatments, which are (themselves) justified on a best interests standard.
The entire article is here.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
What Are The Real Effects Of Cyberbullying?
DNews
Originally published on Oct 31, 2014
Cyberbullying is a serious issue, and the effects it can have on a person can last a lifetime. Join Trace as he discusses the extent of the negative effects.
The three-minute segment is video worth watching. It includes issues related to kids as well as adults.
Originally published on Oct 31, 2014
Cyberbullying is a serious issue, and the effects it can have on a person can last a lifetime. Join Trace as he discusses the extent of the negative effects.
The three-minute segment is video worth watching. It includes issues related to kids as well as adults.
Is parenthood morally respectable?
By Thomas Rodham Wells
The Philosopher's Beard
Originally published November 5, 2014
Parents' private choices to procreate impose public costs without public accountability. Society is presented with expensive obligations to ensure every child a decent quality of life and their development into successful adults and citizens, and that means massive tax-subsidies for their health, education, parental income, and so forth. In addition, children have a demographic impact on public goods like the environment which creates additional costs for society and perhaps humanity as a whole.
So, is parenthood an irresponsible and selfish lifestyle choice?
The entire article is here.
The Philosopher's Beard
Originally published November 5, 2014
Parents' private choices to procreate impose public costs without public accountability. Society is presented with expensive obligations to ensure every child a decent quality of life and their development into successful adults and citizens, and that means massive tax-subsidies for their health, education, parental income, and so forth. In addition, children have a demographic impact on public goods like the environment which creates additional costs for society and perhaps humanity as a whole.
So, is parenthood an irresponsible and selfish lifestyle choice?
The entire article is here.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Therapist and Patient Share a Theater of Hurt
By Corey Kilgannon
The New York Times
Originally published November 5, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Dr. Dintino said that her behavioral approach to Ms. Powell’s condition allows for a more personal relationship with the patient than conventional psychotherapy, and for looser guidelines when it comes to patient-therapist relations.
Ms. Powell was willing to bare all as a patient, and both women felt the risks were outweighed by the potential therapeutic value, as well as the attention that the show could bring to the disorder.
As for the notion that the decision constitutes a breach of ethics, Dr. Landy said, “With certain forms of mental illness that do not respond to conventional treatment, we need a more radical approach, which therapeutic theater can provide.”
The entire article is here.
The New York Times
Originally published November 5, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Dr. Dintino said that her behavioral approach to Ms. Powell’s condition allows for a more personal relationship with the patient than conventional psychotherapy, and for looser guidelines when it comes to patient-therapist relations.
Ms. Powell was willing to bare all as a patient, and both women felt the risks were outweighed by the potential therapeutic value, as well as the attention that the show could bring to the disorder.
As for the notion that the decision constitutes a breach of ethics, Dr. Landy said, “With certain forms of mental illness that do not respond to conventional treatment, we need a more radical approach, which therapeutic theater can provide.”
The entire article is here.
Ms. Maynard was right, Assisted Suicide Should be Legal Everywhere
By Mark Bernstein
Impact Ethics
Originally posted November 10, 2014
Brittany Maynard was in the prime her life when she was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most malignant and deadly form of brain cancer. The best available treatment consists of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy (a pill, not intravenous) along with steroids to decrease brain swelling. Sometimes experimental treatments are undertaken. In spite of all this the vast majority of patients are dead within two years. Often patients suffer the side effects of the treatment, like hair loss, lethargy, depressed immunity causing infections, and facial bloating and weight gain from the prolonged use of steroids. Eventually they lose brain function like the ability to speak or move an arm or walk and ultimately they lose cognitive function. As a senior neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life to the care of patients with Ms. Maynard’s type of tumor and has treated thousands of such patients, I can attest to the poor quality of life many patients with glioblastoma endure.
The entire story is here.
Impact Ethics
Originally posted November 10, 2014
Brittany Maynard was in the prime her life when she was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most malignant and deadly form of brain cancer. The best available treatment consists of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy (a pill, not intravenous) along with steroids to decrease brain swelling. Sometimes experimental treatments are undertaken. In spite of all this the vast majority of patients are dead within two years. Often patients suffer the side effects of the treatment, like hair loss, lethargy, depressed immunity causing infections, and facial bloating and weight gain from the prolonged use of steroids. Eventually they lose brain function like the ability to speak or move an arm or walk and ultimately they lose cognitive function. As a senior neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life to the care of patients with Ms. Maynard’s type of tumor and has treated thousands of such patients, I can attest to the poor quality of life many patients with glioblastoma endure.
The entire story is here.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
How Your Brain Decides Without You
In a world full of ambiguity, we see what we want to see.
By Tom Vanderbilt
Nautilus
Originally published on November 6, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
The structure of the brain, she notes, is such that there are many more intrinsic connections between neurons than there are connections that bring sensory information from the world. From that incomplete picture, she says, the brain is “filling in the details, making sense out of ambiguous sensory input.” The brain, she says, is an “inference generating organ.” She describes an increasingly well-supported working hypothesis called predictive coding, according to which perceptions are driven by your own brain and corrected by input from the world. There would otherwise simple be too much sensory input to take in. “It’s not efficient,” she says. “The brain has to find other ways to work.” So it constantly predicts. When “the sensory information that comes in does not match your prediction,” she says, “you either change your prediction—or you change the sensory information that you receive.”
Harvard Researchers Used Secret Cameras to Study Attendance. Was That Unethical?
By Rebecca Koenig and Steve Kolowich
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published November 6, 2014
A high-tech effort to study classroom attendance at Harvard University that used secret photo surveillance is raising questions about research ethics among the institution’s faculty members. The controversy heated up on Tuesday night, when a computer-science professor, Harry R. Lewis, questioned the study at a faculty meeting.
During the study, which took place in the spring of 2013, cameras in 10 Harvard classrooms recorded one image per minute, and the photographs were scanned to determine which seats were filled.
To some professors, it was an obvious intrusion into their privacy—and their students’.
The entire article is here.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published November 6, 2014
A high-tech effort to study classroom attendance at Harvard University that used secret photo surveillance is raising questions about research ethics among the institution’s faculty members. The controversy heated up on Tuesday night, when a computer-science professor, Harry R. Lewis, questioned the study at a faculty meeting.
During the study, which took place in the spring of 2013, cameras in 10 Harvard classrooms recorded one image per minute, and the photographs were scanned to determine which seats were filled.
To some professors, it was an obvious intrusion into their privacy—and their students’.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart
Book reviewed by John J. Drummond, Fordham University
Anthony J. Steinbock, Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart, Northwestern University Press, 2014, 339pp., $34.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780810129566.
Here is an excerpt:
In this context, the other emotions of self-givenness -- shame and guilt -- function both as self-critique and as challenges to pride. Shame and guilt are diremptive experiences that clearly reveal the interpersonality of one's personhood. In shame "I am not only given as exposed before another, but as receiving myself from another" (76). Shame self-critically apprehends a loss of self-value, but, more importantly, shame reorients the self toward its positive value insofar as it motivates one to modify one's self-understanding of who one is. This self-revelation is what enables shame to serve as a critique of the prideful self, and its futurity points to a Myself as what I ought to be and can be. Shame thereby annuls pride and orients us toward an interpersonal (even if only myself and Myself) normativity. Guilt similarly involves a diremption, but guilt focuses not on what I am but what I did. I stand before you accused by you and responsible to you for what I have done and will do.
The entire book review is here.
Anthony J. Steinbock, Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart, Northwestern University Press, 2014, 339pp., $34.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780810129566.
Here is an excerpt:
In this context, the other emotions of self-givenness -- shame and guilt -- function both as self-critique and as challenges to pride. Shame and guilt are diremptive experiences that clearly reveal the interpersonality of one's personhood. In shame "I am not only given as exposed before another, but as receiving myself from another" (76). Shame self-critically apprehends a loss of self-value, but, more importantly, shame reorients the self toward its positive value insofar as it motivates one to modify one's self-understanding of who one is. This self-revelation is what enables shame to serve as a critique of the prideful self, and its futurity points to a Myself as what I ought to be and can be. Shame thereby annuls pride and orients us toward an interpersonal (even if only myself and Myself) normativity. Guilt similarly involves a diremption, but guilt focuses not on what I am but what I did. I stand before you accused by you and responsible to you for what I have done and will do.
The entire book review is here.
Ethical Responsibilities of Direct-to-Consumer Neuroscience Companies
By Mary Darby
blog.bioethics.gov
Published on November 5, 2014
As part of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, President Obama asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) to “identify proactively a set of core ethical standards – both to guide neuroscience research and to address some of the ethical dilemmas that may be raised by the application of neuroscience research findings.”
This morning, the Bioethics Commission resumed its consideration of ethical issues related to direct-to-consumer (DTC) neuroscience, including products like dietary supplements, neurofeedback devices, and even memory games.
The entire blog post is here.
blog.bioethics.gov
Published on November 5, 2014
As part of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, President Obama asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) to “identify proactively a set of core ethical standards – both to guide neuroscience research and to address some of the ethical dilemmas that may be raised by the application of neuroscience research findings.”
This morning, the Bioethics Commission resumed its consideration of ethical issues related to direct-to-consumer (DTC) neuroscience, including products like dietary supplements, neurofeedback devices, and even memory games.
The entire blog post is here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)