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Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement
The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices (aDBS) to read (measure neural activity) and write (stimulate brain regions or circuits) shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9050172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35496073 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.813922 |
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author | Kostick-Quenet, Kristin Kalwani, Lavina Koenig, Barbara Torgerson, Laura Sanchez, Clarissa Munoz, Katrina Hsu, Rebecca L. Sierra-Mercado, Demetrio Robinson, Jill Oliver Outram, Simon Pereira, Stacey McGuire, Amy Zuk, Peter Lazaro-Munoz, Gabriel |
author_facet | Kostick-Quenet, Kristin Kalwani, Lavina Koenig, Barbara Torgerson, Laura Sanchez, Clarissa Munoz, Katrina Hsu, Rebecca L. Sierra-Mercado, Demetrio Robinson, Jill Oliver Outram, Simon Pereira, Stacey McGuire, Amy Zuk, Peter Lazaro-Munoz, Gabriel |
author_sort | Kostick-Quenet, Kristin |
collection | PubMed |
description | The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices (aDBS) to read (measure neural activity) and write (stimulate brain regions or circuits) shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of using aDBS to electively (non-therapeutically) modulate mood, cognition, and prosociality. What separates aDBS from most neurotechnologies (e.g. transcranial stimulation) currently used for enhancement is that aDBS remains an invasive, surgically-implanted technology with a risk-benefit ratio significantly different when applied to diseased versus non-diseased individuals. Despite a large discourse about the ethics of enhancement, no empirical studies yet examine perspectives on enhancement from within the aDBS research community. We interviewed 23 aDBS researchers about their attitudes toward expanding aDBS use for enhancement. A thematic content analysis revealed that researchers share ethical concerns related to (1) safety and security; (2) enhancement as unnecessary, unnatural or aberrant; and (3) fairness, equality, and distributive justice. Most (70%) researchers felt that enhancement applications for DBS will eventually be technically feasible and that attempts to develop such applications for DBS are already happening (particularly for military purposes). However, researchers unanimously (100%) felt that DBS ideally should not be considered for enhancement until researchers better understand brain target localization and functioning. While many researchers acknowledged controversies highlighted by scholars and ethicists, such as potential impacts on personhood, authenticity, autonomy and privacy, their ethical concerns reflect considerations of both gravity and perceived near-term likelihood. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9050172 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90501722022-04-29 Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement Kostick-Quenet, Kristin Kalwani, Lavina Koenig, Barbara Torgerson, Laura Sanchez, Clarissa Munoz, Katrina Hsu, Rebecca L. Sierra-Mercado, Demetrio Robinson, Jill Oliver Outram, Simon Pereira, Stacey McGuire, Amy Zuk, Peter Lazaro-Munoz, Gabriel Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices (aDBS) to read (measure neural activity) and write (stimulate brain regions or circuits) shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of using aDBS to electively (non-therapeutically) modulate mood, cognition, and prosociality. What separates aDBS from most neurotechnologies (e.g. transcranial stimulation) currently used for enhancement is that aDBS remains an invasive, surgically-implanted technology with a risk-benefit ratio significantly different when applied to diseased versus non-diseased individuals. Despite a large discourse about the ethics of enhancement, no empirical studies yet examine perspectives on enhancement from within the aDBS research community. We interviewed 23 aDBS researchers about their attitudes toward expanding aDBS use for enhancement. A thematic content analysis revealed that researchers share ethical concerns related to (1) safety and security; (2) enhancement as unnecessary, unnatural or aberrant; and (3) fairness, equality, and distributive justice. Most (70%) researchers felt that enhancement applications for DBS will eventually be technically feasible and that attempts to develop such applications for DBS are already happening (particularly for military purposes). However, researchers unanimously (100%) felt that DBS ideally should not be considered for enhancement until researchers better understand brain target localization and functioning. While many researchers acknowledged controversies highlighted by scholars and ethicists, such as potential impacts on personhood, authenticity, autonomy and privacy, their ethical concerns reflect considerations of both gravity and perceived near-term likelihood. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9050172/ /pubmed/35496073 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.813922 Text en Copyright © 2022 Kostick-Quenet, Kalwani, Koenig, Torgerson, Sanchez, Munoz, Hsu, Sierra-Mercado, Robinson, Outram, Pereira, McGuire, Zuk and Lazaro-Munoz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Kostick-Quenet, Kristin Kalwani, Lavina Koenig, Barbara Torgerson, Laura Sanchez, Clarissa Munoz, Katrina Hsu, Rebecca L. Sierra-Mercado, Demetrio Robinson, Jill Oliver Outram, Simon Pereira, Stacey McGuire, Amy Zuk, Peter Lazaro-Munoz, Gabriel Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title | Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title_full | Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title_fullStr | Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title_full_unstemmed | Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title_short | Researchers’ Ethical Concerns About Using Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancement |
title_sort | researchers’ ethical concerns about using adaptive deep brain stimulation for enhancement |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9050172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35496073 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.813922 |
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