By The Neuroethics Blog Team Over the years, The Neuroethics Blog has been run by neuroethics trainees under the guidance and leadership of Dr. Karen Rommelfanger. At its start, the team consisted of a few editors who meticulously received, copyedited, and prepared each piece for publication. Since then, it has grown to include a robust Copy and Layout team together run by a Managing Editor; this group worked daily behind the scenes to bring you your weekly post.  This week, the members of the team hope to collectively share with you our reflections from our time working with the Blog.&nb ..read more

By Karen Rommelfanger  Dearest Readers, I’m writing today with a heavy heart but also with some excitement for the next chapter. After ten years, the little blog that could, The Neuroethics Blog, will retire this month. Our leadership team believes that the blog has run its course. We hope in its absence the community will co-create another communication forum which we believe could be just as (if not more) fresh, inclusive, engaging, and robust.  Since 2011, we’ve consistently been able to offer weekly and timely conversations at the intersection of neuroscience and socie ..read more

By Erin Morrow This post is the second in a series featuring interviews that will explore ethical issues surrounding research in memory science. Each interview will highlight a specific theme on this topic with the insights of a research professor in psychology or brain science. The series will consist of five interviews over the span of a year. Image by geralt via Pixabay As summer neared its peak in Atlanta, I spoke to Dr. Peggy L. St. Jacques, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair of Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Science ..read more

By Meghan Hurley Image by Gerd Altmann via PublicDomainPictures.net Artificial intelligence’s rapidly progressing ability to plan actions and integrate and process information in a manner similar to humans, coupled with an increasingly anthropomorphic conceptualization of AI’s underlying mechanisms, has led experts in a variety of fields to discuss the likelihood of AI developing some form of consciousness or sentience. Some researchers believe that it is less a question of whether AI can achieve consciousness and more a question of when they will (Long and Kelley, 2010 ..read more

By Millie Huang Image by Marianne Bacani via Neuroethics Canada On June 17, 2021, the Emerging Issues Task Force of the International Neuroethics Society (INS) held the concluding webinar of their series, putting environmental neuroethics back on the map after discussions were first initiated in 2014. This blog post will provide a digest of the event and discuss why it is significant for our field.  “Environmental neuroethics” describes how 21st century environmental challenges and their impact on neurological and mental health raise a distinct set of considerations at the ..read more

By Alissa L. Meister and Nina Hsu Image via nih.gov At the National Institutes of Health, the neuroethics program within the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative works with the BRAIN community to identify and navigate ethical challenges and implications of neuroscience research programs and discoveries, and to facilitate neuroscience progress. The pace of neuroscience and the development of new technologies is accelerating quickly. These advances in our understanding of the brain and ability to monitor and modulate brain function can r ..read more

 By Karen Herrera-Ferrá  Image by geralt via Pixabay The potential and expected improvement of human life with novel, innovative, and sophisticated neuroscience, neurotechnology (NS/T), and artificial intelligence (AI) has led to an accelerated use and increasing globalization of these tools. This cross-border movement includes low and middle-income countries (LMICs) and regions such as Mexico and Latin America, calling for an ever more needed awareness of contextual, cultural, and cognitive diversity.  This is of relevance as LMICs represent 68% of the global popu ..read more

By Louiza Kalokairinou Image by Forth Edge via Flickr This piece is part of a series that will include discussions about the International Neuroethics Society (INS) webinars; these webinars are being hosted monthly throughout 2021 and feature various neuroethics topics. This post is based on a webinar organized by the International Neuroethics Society, entitled “Ethical and Societal Implications of Telepsychiatry and the New Era of Digital Mental Health” and part of the Neuroethics Webinar Series. The webinar took place in the context of the 12th International Scientific Conferen ..read more

 By Jonah Queen Image by Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr  In June of last year, the FDA approved a unique new treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) which attracted significant media attention. But this new treatment is not a medication or a neurostimulation device — it is a video game. The game, called EndeavorRX and developed by Akili Interactive, is the first video game (or, as the FDA press release announcing its approval describes it, a “game-based digital therapeutic device”) that has received FDA approval as a medical treatment.  The game ..read more

By Anna Zimmer  Image via pxfuel Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating, terminal, and progressive illness, currently affects nearly 6 million Americans (Matthews et al. 2019), and, as of 2016, nearly 44 million people worldwide (2019). Estimates for the next 40 years show the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States surpassing 14 million (Matthews et al. 2019). Here, Alzheimer’s disease healthcare costs in 2020 were estimated to be 305 billion dollars (2020), making it one of the most costly health conditions (Hurd et al. 2013). Treatments are urgently needed. Yet ..read more