Responsibility key to implementing guidelines for treating disorders of consciousness
A disorder of consciousness is a state where consciousness has been affected by devastating damage to the brain. The diagnosis and health care of patients suffering from these disorders raise several clinical as well as ethical issues. And researchers are still looking for ways to solve them. Recent guidelines, European and American, offer important recommendations…
Indicators and criteria of consciousness for behaviourally unresponsive patients
Identifying and quantifying residual consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness is notoriously challenging but increasingly urgent. There is a high rate of misdiagnosis among patients suffering from these disorders, particularly between vegetative states/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and minimally conscious states. A recent BMC Medical Ethics publication explores how operational indicators previously introduced to assess consciousness…
The neuroethics contribution to AI ethics and regulation
The AI ethics research field is growing rapidly. So is the number of guidelines issued to provide operational recommendations to manage the ethical issues raised by AI design, development and implementation. In a recent Neuroethics publication, Michele Farisco, Kathinka Evers and Arleen Salles suggest some of the applied issues covered by these guidelines can in…
Calling all professionals working with Disorders of Consciousness!
As part of the International Brain Injury Association’s Disorders of Consciousness Special Interest Group, we invite professionals working in the field to request their participation in a survey. The intent is to explore professional opinions relevant to the recommendations included in the newly issued Guidelines on Disorders of Consciousness from the European Academy of Neurology…
Digital twins & virtual brains: the importance of conceptual clarity and transparency
Researchers are trying to develop digital twins of the human brain by building so-called ‘virtual brains’. Trying to create virtual copies of such a complex organ, that we know increasingly yet still very little about is a great challenge. In a recent publication, Kathinka Evers and Arleen Salles explore philosophical and neuroethical challenges associated with…
The value of neuroethics and philosophical reflection in the Human Brain Project
The Human Brain Project is committed to implementing responsibility in research and innovation practices. But implementing responsibility means more than setting standards or enforcing compliance. It also means changing mindsets and promoting an ethical culture: A culture where scientific excellence also includes ethical excellence. In the Human Brain Project, we are integrating neuroethics and philosophy…
Can you be cloned?
Why can we feel metaphysical nausea at the thought of cloned humans? I guess it has to do with how we, without giving ourselves sufficient time to reflect, are captivated by a simple image of individuality and cloning. The image then controls our thinking. We may imagine that cloning consists in multiplying our unique individuality in the…
Can AI be conscious? Let us think about the question
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has achieved remarkable results in recent decades, especially thanks to the refinement of an old and for a long time neglected technology called Deep Learning (DL), a class of machine learning algorithms. Some achievements of DL had a significant impact on public opinion thanks to important media coverage, like the cases of the…
The hard problem of consciousness: please handle with care!
We face challenges every day. Some are more demanding than others, but it seems that there is not a day without some problem to handle. Unless they are too big to manage, problems are like the engines of our lives. They push us to always go beyond wherever we are and whatever we do, to…
Are you conscious? Looking for reliable indicators
How can we be sure that a person in front of us is conscious? This might seem like a näive question, but it actually resulted in one of the trickiest and most intriguing philosophical problems, classically known as “the other minds problem.” Yet this is more than just a philosophical game: reliable detection of conscious…
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