Summaries of Presentations 2012 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting October 11 and 12 You can see video of the panels here At the Cutting Edge of Addiction Neuroethics Altering Personhood This panel investigates some of the philosophical, ethical, and clinical implications of interventions, including psychotropic drugs and neurotechnologies, that alter personhood and/or personal identity. Prof. Peter Rabins, will explore in what way personal identity can be altered, how this alteration can be conceptualized, steps that might be taken to restore it, and how this might differ from the concept of personhood. Prof. Agnieszka Marie Jaworska, will outline the concept of the capacity to care and its role in personhood and consider whether neuro-degeneration in frontotemporal dementia is likely to result in loss of the capacity to care. Prof. Peter Reiner will discuss decisional enhancement programs (sometimes called 'nudges') and how public attitudes towards covert and overt nudges deepen our appreciation of autonomy. A Decade of Neuroethics: A Conversation This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Penn/Greenwall workshop on neuroethics and the Stanford Mapping the Field Conference. As the field of Neuroethics enters its adolescence, it continues to define its purview and to develop its connections to neuroscience, ethics, and the world of policy. The panelists, drawn from different places and generations, will engage in conversation about the past, and the future, of neuroethics as a field of study. Steve Hyman will moderate the conversation with Martha Farah, Eric Racine, Verity Brown, and Karen Rommelfanger. Brains in Dishes: Animats and Hybrots Steve Potter of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi from Northwestern, who have developed “brains in dishes,” will join us to talk about taking neurons (or even whole brains) out of organisms to use as information processors. Using these living neural networks, neuroscientists have created simulated animals they call “animats” or “hybrots.” Paul Wolpe will explore the ethical issues around the use of living neural tissue as the processing components of computer chips or animal brains kept alive in a dish for human purposes. |