What is Neuroethics (and what questions does it investigate)?

A summary of the issues that neuroethics seeks to address as neuroscience advances.

Neuroethics is a part of bioethics that is responsible for studying the ethical, legal and social impact of knowledge and research on the brain, and the practical applications that these have in medicine and, ultimately, in people's lives.

In this article we will take a closer look at what neuroethics consists ofIn this article we will see in more detail what neuroethics consists of, how research is carried out in this discipline, what are the big questions it asks and its answers, as well as the problems and challenges that the future holds.

• Related article, "What problems does neuropsychology address?"

What is neuroethics?

The term "neuroethics" refers to the study of the ethical, legal and social issues and implications arising from scientific findings involving the manipulation of the brain. for medical purposes.

William Safire, a Pullitzer Prize-winning journalist in 1978, defined this discipline as "the examination of what is right and wrong, good and bad, in the clinical and/or surgical treatment and manipulation of the human brain".

Advances in neuroscience research imply a growing knowledge of the neurobiological basis of issues related to human consciousness, morality, decision making or the concept of "self" and personality. And in this respect, neuroethics will play a decisive role in the years to come.

Improvements in neuroimaging research methods, e.g.The new technologies, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, already make it possible to monitor brain functioning practically in real time, so that we can "know" what a person is thinking or feeling, and even manipulate those thoughts or feelings by means of techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Advances in other disciplines such as psychopharmacology or biochemistry are already showing that the possibility of manipulating a human being, his or her state of mind or cognitive abilities and capacities is already a verifiable reality.

And in order to put a stop (or not) to a future dystopia in which we end up as remote-controlled or neuro-idiotized puppets, neuroethics is emerging as a useful discipline to discuss laws, laws of the future, and the possibility of manipulation. a useful discipline to discuss laws, norms and the social implications that emerge from good or bad that emerge from the good or bad use of neurotechnologies and neurosciences.

Scientific research in neuroethics

Scientific research in the neuroscience of ethics or neuroethics has been interested in two aspects: the empirical and the theoretical. Empirical neuroethics would be based on neuroscientific data related to ethical matters and concepts, data based on experience and the scientific method, as conceived in the natural sciences.

Theoretical neuroethics, on the other hand, would focus on methodological and conceptual aspects that serve to link neuroscientific facts with ethical concepts, to with ethical concepts, at both descriptive and normative levels.

Researchers encounter the problem of not having correlates that, methodologically, allow them to explore certain concepts from an empirical point of view, as happens with terms such as goodness, justice or equity. What are their methodological correlates? O... What would be the technically adequate design to be able to investigate these concepts in neuroethics?

A second problem lies in the theoretical part of neuroethics.. Any ethics or morality would have several functions: to clarify what is understood by "morality", to try to discover what its foundations are, and to determine what would be the principles of what is called morality, in order to be able to apply them in society and in daily life. However, it is not possible to rely solely on neuroscientific data to clarify these doubts, since what is considered moral does not only concern science, but also philosophy.

Questions such as, what is understood by moral philosophy, or what type of regulation would be necessary for research in neuroscience, are some of those that have interested many researchers, who have tried to resolve them by various means of argumentation.

Answers to how to do research in neuroethics

The answers that have emerged to the question: what kind of technically adequate designs have to be carried out in order to conduct research in neuroethics, have pointed to functional neuroimaging studies and their main techniques: quantitative electroencephalography, positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, tractography and magnetoencephalography.

These neuroimaging techniques capture the brain in action and researchers interpret them by associating an activity (motor, perceptual or cognitive) with the brain image produced, so that it follows that the image would indicate the neural network where the activity originates; that is, the correlate would be assumed to be the cause (neurodeterminism).

Although these types of techniques are excellent for exploring the nervous system, it is somewhat adventurous to think that we can rely solely on the results and statistical data of these tests. to draw unitary conclusions on such controversial concepts and issues as morality or free will, for example.

Regarding the question of how moral philosophy is understood, there are authors such as Michael Gazzaniga, PhD in psychology, who propose the existence of a universal ethics, which would have a concrete neurobiological and not a philosophical basis. For his part, the neuroscientist Francisco Mora, assumes that the concept of ethics always implies the relationship we have with others and believes that it is not appropriate to differentiate between ethics and morals, since both terms are used interchangeably.

Finally, when asked what regulation would be necessary for research in neuroethics, the answer given by researchers has been to appeal to the ethics of neuroscience, i.e., to appeal to the ethics of the work itself, to appeal to the ethics of the work carried out by neuroscientists, i.e., to the ethics of neuroscience.The notion of capacity, free and voluntary expression of informed consent, respect for the dignity and integrity of the research subjects, etc.

Future problems and challenges

The current problems of neuroethics can be divided into two broad categories: those related to technical advances in neuroscience, i.e. the implications of the development of neuroimaging techniques, psychopharmacology, brain implants or the brain-machine interface; and those related to the philosophy and understanding of the neurobiological bases of consciousness, personality or human behavior.

In recent years, psychopharmacological research has invested considerable sums of money in drugs for the treatment of cognitive disorders. for the treatment of cognitive disorders, and more specifically for attention and memory disorders. Drugs such as methylphenidate and its use for attention deficit disorders; or ampakine, which favors long-term potentiation mechanisms, improving performance in memory tests in healthy subjects, are just some examples.

This increase in drug consumption, especially in healthy subjectsespecially in healthy subjects, raises a number of ethical issues, such as the following:

Health problems: medium and long-term adverse effects in healthy subjects are unknown.

Social consequences: questions arise as to how the use of these drugs could affect social relations or the situation of individuals who do not take them, compared to those who do, in terms of class or inequality. And it seems clear that, in highly competitive and stressful contexts, the freedom not to use them would be relative..

Philosophical implications: the use of these drugs calls into question and alters the vision we have of concepts such as personal effort, autonomy or capacity for self-improvement. Is it ethical to rapidly and artificially improve cognitive capacities?

On the other hand, advances in the understanding of the neurobiological bases of social behavior, morality and decision-making have direct implications for our way of thinking, have direct implications for the way we conceive notions of our lives, such as personal responsibility or imputability.such as personal responsibility or the imputability of a person, key aspects for neuroethics.

In the future, this discipline will continue to discuss relevant questions, such as: can we judge an adolescent equally for a crime committed if we know that at that age the neurobiological bases of moral reasoning have not yet been established? If free will is just a cognitive illusion and does not exist as such, does it make sense for people to be imputable? Should we put barriers to brain research and manipulation? Questions that even today remain without a clear answer.

Bibliographical references:

• Bonete E. Practical neuroethics. Bilbao: Desclée de Brouwer; 2010.
• Cortina, A. (2010): "Neuroethics: the cerebral bases of a universal ethics with political relevance?", in Isegoría, nº 42, 129-148.
• Farah M J. Neuroethics: the practical and the philosophical. Trends Cogn Sci 2005; 9 (1): 34-40.