Looking forward: new neurotechnologies

The examples discussed above included pharmaceuticals that are already approved for use, existing brain imaging techniques and invasive neurotherapies. But practical neuroethical concerns, and some theoretical concerns, are highly dependent upon the details of technologies. Several technologies are already on the horizon that are bound to raise some new neuroethical questions, or old questions in new guises. One of the most powerful new tools in the research neuroscientist’s arsenal is “optogenetics”, a method of transfecting brain cells with genetically engineered proteins that make the cell responsive to light of specific wavelengths. The cells can then be activated or silenced by shining light upon them, allowing for cell-specific external control (Deisseroth 2011; Yizhar et al. 2011). Optogenetics has been successfully used in many model organisms, including rats, and work is underway to use optogenetics in monkeys. One may presume it is only a matter of time before it will be developed for use in humans. The method promises to provide precise control of specific neural populations and relatively noninvasive targeted treatments for diseases. It promises to introduce the kind of neuroethical issues raised by many mechanisms that intervene with brain function: questions of harm, of authenticity, and the prospect of brain cells being controlled by someone other than the agent himself. A second technique, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat), allows powerful targeted gene editing (Cong et al. 2013). Although not strictly a neuroscientific technique, it can be used on neural cells to effect brain changes at the genetic level. Genetic engineering might make possible neural gene therapies and designer babies, making real the consequences of the genetic revolution thus far only imagined.
These and other technologies were not even imagined a few decades ago, and it is likely that other future technologies will emerge which we cannot currently conceive of. If many neuroethical issues are closely tied to the capabilities of neurotechnologies, as I have argued, then we are unlikely to anticipate future technologies in enough detail to predict the constellation of neuroethical issues that they may give rise to. Neuroethics will have to grow as neuroscience does, adapting to novel ethical and technological challenges.

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Looking forward: new neurotechnologies

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Looking forward: new neurotechnologies :: تعاليق

Looking forward: new neurotechnologies